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FRIEND OR FORTUNE? 


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FRIEND OR FORTUNE 

A STORY FOR BOYS , 


ROBERT 9VERTON 

WITH PICTURES BY 

FREDERIC YOHN 



STONE <Sr KIMBALL 


MDCCCXCVI 

! 


COPYRIGHT, 1896, BY 
STONE AND KIMBAEI, 



r ( 




CONTENTS 


CHAPTER 

I. The Situation, 7. 

II. A Message from the Sea, 15. 

III. An Auction in the Big Dormitory, 20. 

IV. A Startling Revelation, 28. 

V. What Happened, 36. 

VI. Was Harry Saxon Murdered ? 47. 

VH. Facing the World with a “Fiver,” 52. 
VHI. PooLEY DE Vere Pullet, 61. 

IX. Red Fights Ahead ! 66. 

X. What was the Dead Man’s News? 76. 

XI. The Land of Gold, 81. 

XH. Good-Bye, Old England ! 90. 

XHI. A Mysterious Passenger, 96. 

XIV. A White Night, 106. 

XV. An Old Chum on and a New Chum off, hi, 

XVI. The Other End of the World, 118. 

XVH. Adopting a Father, 126. 

XVIII. In dire Peril, 134. 

XIX. Just in Time, 142. 

XX. A Sinful Paradise, 146. 

XXI. Passing the Word, 157. 


6 


CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER 

XXII. “ Forewarned, Forearmed ! ” 165. 
XXIII. Jacobs’ Chance, 173. 

XXIV. Sentenced to Death, 182. 

XXV. “Time’s up ! ’’ 188. 

XXVI. The End of the Insurrection, 194. 
XXVII. The East op Sunny Isdand, 203. 
XXVIII. Jim Cuucock’s Christmas Card, 214. 
XXIX. “Who are you?’’ 218. 

XXX. The Dead Auive ! 226. 

XXXI. December Sunshine, 232. 

XXXII. Bearding the Eion in his Den, 235. 
XXXIII. Chums stied 240. 


FRIEND OR FORTUNE 


CHAPTER I. 

THE SITUATION. 

“ ' I ^HE situation is getting strained, Rafe,” said 

JL Harry Saxon, my cousin and my chum. 

“ So much so,” I replied, that something’s 
bound to go snap before long.” 

Briefly, the “ situation ” under discussion was 
this — 

Harry Saxon and I — Ralph Towers — were 
orphans. Until our parents died (his father and 
mother within a few weeks of my father and my 
mother) we had seen little of each other. But 
since that sad time, six years ago, we had never 
been parted, for we had been at the same board- 
ing-school. Having nowhere else to go, our vaca- 
tions were spent there as well as term-times. 

The only living relative of whom we had any 
knowledge — our uncle, Major Bengough, of Bom- 
bay — had, we understood, undertaken to pay for 
7 


8 


Friend or Fortune 


both of us. He was the brother of Harry’s dead 
mother and of mine. We knew little else about 
him. He never wrote to us, never sent us any 
message, any word of greeting, through the Lon- 
don solicitor who appeared to act as his agent, 
and through whom his remittances for our school 
bills were received by Dr. Job Consett, the prin- 
cipal of the Beechy Bay Academy for Young 
Gentlemen. 

For more than five years the Major had sent 
these remittances with military regularity and 
punctuality. But for two whole terms, and the 
greater part of a third term, nothing had been re- 
ceived from him. Of this fact Consett himself, 
with harsh voice and black brows, had not hesi- 
tated to inform us. 

“ Old Consett cares for money,” Harry Saxon 
had said, “ more than he cares for anything else 
in this world — or the next. If somebody doesn’t 
pay up, what will he do, and what shall we have 
to do ? ” 

That was just the crux of the situation, and the 
particular point in which Harry and I had been 
specially discussing in the hamper-shed after morn- 
ing school on the day on which these veracious 
chronicles have their beginning. 

Our conversation was interrupted by the sudden 
opening of the door, and the thrusting into view 
of the merry face and- the exceedingly curly head 
of Walter Locks, the playground monitor. 


The Situation 


9 


“ Here, I say, you fellows, I don’t know what 
you’re in for, but ‘ The Patient One ’ is waiting 
for you in the sanctum, and you’re both to go in 
to him at once.” 

“ All right. Curly. What does he look like ? ” 

“ A double dose, Harry, with a little bit to spare 
for next time ” — and the merry face and curly 
head disappeared. 

The genesis of the sobriquet of “The Patient 
One ” for Dr. Job Consett was in this wise : Some 
brilliant wit suggested “ The Patient ” as an agree- 
able variation of “ The Doctor.” This suggestion 
was evidently improved upon by an even more 
brilliant wit dubbing our anything but esteemed 
pedagogue, “ The Patient One,” in pointed allu- 
sion to his lack of patience and to his Christian 
name. 

“ We ought to make the most of his Christian 
name,” this genius had remarked ; “ it’s the only 
Christian thing about him.” 

And looking back even now — in the days when 
an ex-schoolboy is. disposed to think kindly of 
those whom he judged less charitably in early days 
— I honestly believe that boy spoke the truth. 

Harry and I looked at each other. 

“ The situation is about to snap,” said I. 

“ Let it snap,” returned Harry, recklessly and 
curtly — though he linked his arm in mine affec- 
tionately, as much as to add, “ Whatever’s before 
us, we’ll face it together,” as off we walked with 


10 Friend or Fortune 

silent tongues but beating hearts to learn the 
worst. 

Through the playground into the school-house, 
along the passages towards the Doctor’s dreaded 
study. 

He was waiting for us — a spare little man, whose 
face a physiognomist would have found a good 
deal of fault with. He would have said that the 
small, closely set eyes were cunning ones ; that the 
long upper lip indicated avariciousness ; that 
the whole expression of his face was a shifty 
one. 

However avaricious he may have been, it was 
an open secret in the school that he hadn’t ac- 
quired much. The elder boys used to say that, 
in his haste to be rich, what he made he lost by 
rash dabbling in stocks and shares which had a 
habit of falling in value as soon as he possessed 
them. 

In the thin, grating voice we knew so well, he 
came to the point without any preliminary parley. 

“Well, young gentlemen,” he said — his habit 
of sarcastic politeness was a seldom-failing irritant 
— “ I have some interesting news for you. Being 
still without money — money for your education, 
your board, and the very clothes you wear — I 
wrote at last to Mr. Dexton, your benevolent 
uncle’s agent in London, demanding an explana- 
tion. I had asked for one several times without 
getting it — now I’ve got it, such as it is. After 


The Situation 


II 


sheltering himself, for not having told me before, 
behind the excuse of his principal’s instructions 
to be silent, he has condescended to inform me 
that nine months ago Major Bengough advised 
him that he was returning to England on board 
the Eastern Star. In fact, he wrote from on 
board her at Bombay, and was to sail the next 
day or the day after.” 

That was nine months ago, sir ! ” exclaimed 
Harry. 

“Yes, sir; nine months almost to the day.” 

“ Did he — did uncle say anything about us, 
sir? ” I faltered. 

“ Simply that he would inspect you — these 
are his own words, mark you — and make such 
arrangements as he thought proper about your 
future, upon his arrival. But he hasn’t arrived, 
and nothing whatever has been heard of the 
Eastern Star from the day she sailed, nine months 
ago. Nine months’ education, board, clothing, 
religious training, books, and extras, all owing to 
me — to say nothing of kindness, special anxiety, 
and individual attention ! ” 

Harry’s face flushed. 

“ Won’t Mr. Dexton pay you. Dr. Consett ? ” 

“ Mr. Dexton has no funds to pay me from^ 
and no instructions to pay me if he had the 
funds — and no wish to pay me if he had both,” 
added the patient Job, viciously. “ There’s his 
letter,” he continued, grabbing hold of a paper 


12 Friend or Fortune 

before him and flinging it across the table. 
“ Read it.” 

Harry Saxon and I read the lawyer’s com- 
munication together. It was brief and succinct. 
The news it contained had been retailed to us 
without palliation or exaggeration. Annexed to 
it was a copy of Uncle Bengough’s own short 
letter. 

“The Eastern Star is a sailing vessel, mark 
you,” resumed Dr. Consett as we returned him 
the letter. “If this Major Bengough had been 
a man of proper character, he would have come 
by the steamer that carried his precious note, 
and would have brought my money with him, 
instead of taking a later passage by a sailing-ship 
and getting drowned in my debt. As it is, here 
you are, you two, with the largest appetites in 
the school, but without a friend or relation in 
the world who can pay me.” 

I noticed that Harry’s brown eyes, so gentle as 
a rule, began to glitter dangerously. But I got 
in before him with — 

“ Surely, sir, if ... if uncle is not heard of 
again it’ll be somebody’s duty to pay you out 
of what he may have left behind him.” 

“ If he had anything to leave behind him, do 
you think his solicitor would write like that ? ” 

Consett pointed with an angry gesture to Mr. 
Dexton’s letter. 

“ Would his own solicitor disclaim responsi- 


The Situation 


13 

bility if there were any money to be responsible 
with ? Bah ! ” 

Harry’s eyes were blazing now. He drew 
himself up as he cried hotly — 

** We’ll pay you ourselves ! ” 

“Yes,” I joined in — I was a capital hand at 
joining in — “ we’ll pay you ourselves ! ” 

Job Consett didn’t laugh — he never did ; I don’t 
believe he had ever honestly laughed in all the 
fifty years of his life — but his thin lips parted 
in the nearest approach to a smile he ever indulged 
in. 

“ I shall be happy to give you a receipt.” 

“ So you shall give us a receipt one of these 
days.” 

“ And in the mean time, Master Saxon, I 
propose to take care that the amount is not 
increased. In six days’ time — on the 28th of 
July — we break up. If I have not been paid by 
then — and who is there to pay me ? — instead of 
spending the vacation with me as usual, you will 
both go with the other boys.” 

“ Go where, sir ? ” asked Harry. 

“ Wherever you like, so long as you don’t come 
back.” 

“ What are we to do, sir ? ” was the question 
I vainly struggled to repress. 

“ Whatever you like, so long as you never 
come back. I won’t seek to influence you in any 
way. Shift for yourselves. For the six days 


14 


Friend or Fortune 


between now and the twenty-eighth — almost a 
week — I will continue to keep you. But I trust 
to your honor not to eat more than you can 
help.” 

If it cost me an effort to control my feelings, 
what must it have cost my high-spirited cousin ? 
An outbreak of indignant words trembled on 
his lips ; I even saw that he doubled those strong 
fists of his. 

I nudged him with my elbow, and tossed back 
my head towards the door, to which we both 
stalked off without a word. But at the door 
Harry turned, and looked Dr. Job Consett square 
in the face. There was no mistaking the double 
meaning of the short sentence he shot out at the 
Head Master of Beechy Bay Academy for Young 
Gentlemen before he closed that door behind 
him — 

“ One of these days. Dr. Consett, we llpay you ! ” 


A Message from the Sea 


15 


CHAPTER II. 

A MESSAGE FROM THE SEA. 

T he situation had snapped, for Consett, its 
master, had spoken. We were face to face 
now with the actualities of a new one, which, 
though anticipated, was so fraught with perplexi- 
ties, so beset with difficulties, that it is no wonder 
both Harry and I found ourselves on the punish- 
ment-list that afternoon for inattention and “ gross 
carelessness.” The only part of our punishment 
we troubled about was its accidental side : it made 
it impossible for us to be alone to discuss our 
plans until the long hot summer day had waned 
into evening. 

Then — ignoring without a single pang of con- 
science the rule which would have confined us 
within bounds — we made off together for the beach, 
the strip of golden sand which we loved better 
than any other spot in Beechy Bay. For the 
fishermen were all chums of ours : there wasn’t 
one of them who didn’t make us free of his boat, 
and it was from this favorite spot of ours they 
had taught us to put out fearlessly to sea — taught 


i6 


Friend or Fortune 


us to swim, to row, to sail. We had gone with 
some of them as far as Start Point on one side, 
and Portland Bill on the other; for it was between 
the two that lay the little town I will continue to 
call Beechy Bay. As a matter of fact, it was so 
called by the local rustics. 

And just beyond where the sands ended in a 
rugged, ragged, jagged, bristling line of rocks and 
crags, we had our own cave, into which we fondly 
believed few but ourselves knew the tortuous way. 
Besides, scarcely a mile from this part of the 
shore, to the left of the projecting headland that 
ran seaward beyond it, was Bay Island. And 
what a glorious place at low tide was Bay Island ! 
What hours Harry and I used to spend there, 
collaring the first idle boat we came to ! What 
fishing and harpooning in its salt pools we en- 
joyed ! What Natural history collecting, chiefly 
of live (and unfortunate) specimens for Harry’s 
museum,” as he called a zinc-lined box which, 
with the connivance of a good-natured housemaid, 
he kept under his bed in the big dormitory ! 

We sat with our backs against an upturned 
smack. The southerly wind blew sweet and fresh 
in our faces, cooling the pine-scented air. The 
blue sky hung low over a bluer sea, athwart which 
began to stream the white track of the moonlight. 
“ What were we to do ? ” was all we talked about. 

“ It’s the suspense — the uncertainty — that 
makes it all so hard to tackle,” said Harry. “ If 


A Message from the Sea 17 

we knew that uncle was alive — well, little as we 
really know about him, we know what he said in 
that letter : that he’d inspect us, and make ar- 
rangements about our future. That’s indefinite, 
but still it’s something to hang on by — or would 
be. On the other hand, if we knew for certain 
that he was dead ” 

“ Well ?” said I, for he hesitated. 

“ Why, we’d clear away from Old Consett’s to- 
morrow, that’s certain. What we’d have to do 
afterwards is ” 

Is as certain as the fate of Uncle Bengough 
is, at present.” 

His fate may be uncertain for long enough yet.” 

But not ours, Harry — that’s to be decided, at 
least up to a certain big point, by the twenty- 
eighth.” 

^^So it is. I say, old man,” he interjected 
after a pause of silence, the wind’s freshening.” 

^^Yes,” I agreed; “it’s been getting up for a 
quarter of an hour past. And look there — just 
the other side of the island — here’s one of the 
boats running in before it. It’s Dan Runciman’s, 
I think,” I continued, as I caught a fuller view of 
the bellying brown sails. 

We rose and walked to the water’s edge. The 
boat sailed so rapidly that we soon satisfied our- 
selves that it was our old friend Dan’s. We sent 
a hail across the water, and Dan’s own voice an- 
swered it. 


2 


i8 


Friend or Fortune 


If we were to be back in time for the last roll- 
call we ought to have returned at once ; but we 
were just in the mood to risk anything, and we 
agreed to wait to lend a hand in beaching the ap- 
proaching Curlew. 

She wasn’t long in getting in. Down came her 
sails with a run as she touched ground. Out 
sprang Dan and his son Joe. To the former’s 
cheery “ Heave-heave-ho-o ! ” they and Harry and 
I hauled her up. 

“ A poor catch, Dan,” said Harry, with a glance 
at the few fish at the bottom of the boat. 

“ Aye, poor enough, sir,” responded old Dan. 

With a mysterious look on his honest, brown- 
red face, he went on. 

“ But we’ve fished up something I never caught 
before.” 

Leaning over the gunwale of his little craft, he 
opened the locker and brought out — if I may use 
such a phrase — a weather-beaten looking bottle, 
tightly corked, and further secured at the open- 
ing by what looked like a complicated arrange- 
ment of wirework. 

Holding the bottle in his hands, Dan said — 

‘‘We found this bobbing round our bows, just 
as though it was asking for to be took aboard. I 
says to Joe as I catches hold of it, ‘ Joe,’ I says, 
‘ this here bottle do look like what the papers 
call a “ Message from the Sea.” ’ And so it do, 
young gentlemen, so it do.” 


19 


A Message from the Sea 

We looked at the bottle with interest. 

It s lucky you’re here,” reflected Dan ; for 
if so be as there’s anything in it of the sort I’m 
thinking, it’ll be a wrote message, and you’ll be 
able to read a wrote message better than me and 
Joe. Print’s more in our line.” 

Open it, Dan ! ” we cried. 

Dan raised the mysterious-looking bottle, and 
broke the neck on the Curlew's gunwale. 

Our excitement increased as he drew out of it 
and handed to Harry what looked like a folded 
leaf from a pocket-book. 

With eager fingers Harry unfolded the slip of 
paper. 

Looking over his shoulder in the moonlight, 
my hands and lips trembled with his as together 
we read this message from the dead, written in 
large, clear characters on the widely-lined page. 
Somehow, the letters conveyed the idea that it 
was the lost ship they came from that quivered as 
they were written, not the hand that wrote them. 

Supplemented by details of latitude and longi- 
tude, these were the words of the message : — 

“ Midnight^ January \sty i88 — . 

“ The ‘ Eastern Star ’ is sinking, with all on 
board. 


** Gabriel BengoughI 


20 


Friend or Fortune 


CHAPTER III. 


AN AUCTION IN THE BIG DORMITORY. 

UR agitation was too great to escape notice. 



KJ Old Dan and his son — a brawny young 
fisherman only some five or six years our senior 
— regarded us with looks of amazement. 

“What be it, sirs? ” cried the former. 

Harry slowly read the message aloud, and 
turned to me with a look of inquiry which I an- 
swered with a nod. Then he told our two 
honest-hearted humble friends what the message 
meant to himself and to me. Almost everybody 
in the place knew why it was that we always spent 
our holidays at school instead of going home like 
the other boys — Dan and Joe were certainly no 
strangers to the fact that it was because we had 
no home to go to. They knew from ourselves 
all that we had ever known about our uncle 
Gabriel — so a very few words sufficed to make 
them understand what the definite news of the 
loss of the Eastern Star with Major Bengoughon 
board meant after the ultimatum that had been 
delivered to us that morning. 


21 


An Auction in the Big Dormitory 

That must be our last night at Beechy Bay — 
to-morrow morning we must pack up the few 
things belonging to us and go — where ? 

“We won’t eat the bread of charity from table, 
Rafe, anyway,” said Harry in a rather choky voice. 

“ No, old chap — we’ll starve first.” 

Dan and Joe said very little, but as they walked 
up the beach with us towards the school gates a 
weight seemed to be on the mind of each. Per- 
haps it was just this weight on their minds that 
kept their tongues so silent. 

“ Good-night, Dan — and good-bye.” 

With similar words I offered my hand to Joe, 
as Harry extended his to Joe’s father. 

“ Good-night, sir, and good-night. Master Rafe 
— but not good-bye yet. We shall be sort of 
standing by to-morrow all day — p’raps two pairs 
o’ willing hands might come in useful in the mat- 
ter o’ boxes, and so on.” 

“ All we have, Dan, I’m afraid we shall be able 
to carry ourselves,” said Harry with a laugh in 
which there was very little mirth. “ But we’ll 
look out for you before we go, all the same.” 

That weight wasn’t off Dan’s mind yet. 

“ Look ’ee here. Master Harry, and likewise 
Master Rafe equally,” he got out at last with an 
obvious effort, “ seeing as how as I knows what I 
knows — which the same is what you’ve told me 
— what I would respeckful mean to say is as how 
there is a home open and free though humble 


22 


Friend or Fortune 


enough, and the same ” — pointing a huge red 
finger towards his own cottage — “ is there ! Also, 
likewise, if a rough and tumble substitoot for a 
father might be wanted any time — or a uncle — 
why, he’s here ! ” 

And the red finger touched his broad chest. 
“ And if a rougher and tumbler substitoot for a 
brother might any time come in handy,” burst in 
Joe, who was apt to get a little “ mixed ” when 
excited, “ he’s here-er ! ” 

I don’t see why I should be ashamed to record 
that my eyes were not any more above suspicion 
than Harry’s were, as again we shook the hard 
hands of these rough chums of ours, and bolted 
off from the other side of the gates. We felt that 
it wouldn’t be quite safe for us to try any speech- 
ifying on, even by way of thanks. Speechifying 
doesn’t agree well with lumps in the throat. 

We were too late for roll-call, but found that 
Curly Locks, who had lately been studying and 
practising ventriloquism, had seized the oppor- 
tunity of proving the practical value of the art, 
and his own proficiency in it, by answering to our 
names, to the intense admiration of the whole 
school. 

Curly was not only monitor of the playground, 
but of the big dormitory. Before we twenty who 
slept there filed upstairs, Harry and I had a chat 
with him ; and he constituted himself the con- 
ductor of the subsequent proceedings. 


An Auction in the Big Dormitory 23 

These proceedings were more or less lively. 
They began soon after the under-master had 
passed through the different bedrooms to make 
sure that all lights were out. A naked-footed and 
night-shirted scout was sent out to summon the 
occupants of the smaller apartments to a grand 
palaver in the big one. 

As soon as they had assembled, Walter Locks 
cautiously lit a piece of candle and stuck it into 
the neck of an empty ginger-beer bottle. Sitting 
bolt upright at the head of his bed, he proceeded 
to unburden his soul. He went at some length 
(for he was very fond of talking) into the circum- 
stances under which Harry and I were about to 
leave and to face the great unknown world ” for 
ourselves. With breathless interest our school- 
mates listened to his account of what had oc- 
curred only an hour or two ago ; from hand to 
hand passed the message from the sinking East- 
ern Star. 

The monitor said that we were leaving behind 
us a reputation of which that school would always 
be proud. 

‘‘ No, no,” we murmured modestly. 

Yes, yes,” insisted Curly firmly. He would 
deal first with Harry Saxon. Was there a boy in 
that room who didn’t remember, or who hadn’t 
heard of, Jim Bloggs, the pork-butcher’s assistant ? 
Hadn’t the name of Bloggs been a terror, term 
after term — for hadn’t Bloggs licked our chosen 


24 


Friend or Fortune 


champions one after the other ? Who was it who 
finally plugged Bloggs in the eye, and left him on 
the field of battle in such a disabled condition 
that he had to crawl out of it into a bed of sick- 
ness for a fortnight? It was Harry Saxon. 
(Smothered cheers.) 

The first eleven would miss him sorely ; it 
would be long before his place could be filled in 
the football team. If another Bloggs should 
arise, he trembled for the good name of the school 
with Harry Saxon’s fist shining in some other 
sphere of life. 

He was not going to deny that there was a blot 
in Harry Saxon's character. For there was one. 
It was his museum. He denied the right of any 
boy to keep a lot of beastly reptiles and other live 
things, crawling or otherwise, in a box under his 
bed, as experience had proved that it was impos- 
sible to prevent the frequent escape of adventu- 
rous specimens which were obviously — and, he 
considered, not unreasonably — dissatisfied with 
the accommodation of that box. He himself, 
though a strict teetotaler, had upon no fewer than 
seven occasions found green snakes in his bed, 
and there could be no doubt where they came 
from. However, was there not a snake in Para- 
dise? He believed that if Hariy Saxon would 
struggle against snakes he would get on in the 
world. 

And that brought him to the point. Harry 


An Auction in the Big Dormitory 25 

Saxon and Rate Towers had found, upon the very 
eve of their departure, that their united available 
capital amounted to one shilling and eleven pence. 
This was a small sum to start life on their own 
account with. It must be augmented. With 
this end in view, he was about to conduct a public 
auction, at their own request, of their effects, or 
such of them as they felt it would be out of place 
to take into the world with them. 

After some further remarks, he said that he 
would start with the beastly museum he had al- 
ready referred to, and hastened to state at once 
that he had wrung a reluctant consent from its 
present owner to the following condition of sale : 
the fellow who bought it was at liberty to kill the 
specimens and smash up the box. He would 
start the bidding himself at seven and sixpence. 
Would nobody bid more than seven and sixpence? 
Then he’d say ten shillings, and, with a bang of 
his fist on the pillow to represent the fall of the 
hammer, The museum’s mine.” 

Lot No. 2 was my cricket-bat — I’d won it the 
previous season with the second eleven for the 
best match-score average. 

“ Now, what shall we say for this prime bat ? ” 
demanded Curly. “You see, they’ve decided to 
go to London first to see this solicitor chap for 
themselves, and the fares are stiff — awfully stiff. 
So what shall we start this fine bat at ? ” 

The fellows saw through Locks’s dodge at once. 


26 


Friend or Fortune 


Competition was keen for the bat and the few 
other articles that followed it. They were all 
“ knocked down ” at fancy prices. 

“The sale has realized,” announced the auc- 
tioneer at last, running his eye down the figures 
pencilled on the cuff of his night-gown — “ the 
sale has realized three pounds nineteen.” 

“ That’s all very well. Curly,” remarked the 
voice of one of the highest bidders, “ but what 
about stumping up the money? It’s the end of 
the term, and we’re all hard up. I don’t believe 
we’ve got even the nineteen shillings between the 
whole lot of us ! ” 

A hurried consultation resulted in the establish- 
ment of this painful surmise as a still more pain- 
ful fact. Every bidder had relied upon borrow- 
ing from some other bidder. 

But the auctioneer was equal even to this emer- 
gency. 

I’d thought of this,” he said, “ and it’s all 
right. My godfather sent me a fiver only yes- 
terday, to spend during the vacation — I haven’t 
broken into it yet. I sympathize with my god- 
father very much, but I shall have to tap him for 
another fiver. So I shall pay up for everybody. 
I shall hand Harry and Rafe their three pounds 
and nineteen bob entire, and all you chaps who’ve 
been bidding will have to settle up with me for 
your different lots when you come back after the 
holidays.” 


An Auction in the Big Dormitory 27 

“ Bravo, Curly ! ” “ You’re a brick ! ” “ Curly 

forever ! ” broke out on all hands ; but the manifes- 
tation of feeling was sternly repressed by Curly 
himself. 

Back to your rooms, all you outside fellows,” 
he ordered, and into bed, everybody. The 
sale’s over, and the candle’s going out.” 

A quarter of an hour afterwards, when we 
thought everybody in the big dormitory but our- 
selves was fast asleep, a white-robed apparition 
crept between Harry’s bed and mine, and slipped 
into Harry’s hand something that crackled. 

“ Three pounds nineteen bob,” whispered the 
apparition, gliding away. 

“ Here, Curly, stop,” said Harry, trying to 
grab the disappearing tail of the apparition’s flut- 
tering night-shirt. Stop ! this is a five-pound 
note, and we’ve no change.” 

“Shut up, can’t you! If you say ‘change’ 
again, not to speak of what I’ll do if you offer it 
me,” cried the apparition, savagely, in a hoarse 
whisper, “ I’ll punch the heads of the pair of 
you ! ” 


28 


Friend or Fortune 


CHAPTER IV. 

A STARTLING REVELATION. 

T he next morning, soon after breakfast, we 
sent our names in to the Doctor for an 
interview. He granted us one at once. 

** Well,’’ he said sharply, as we entered his 
room, “ what is it you want with me? If I’d 
had any further news, I should have sent for you. 
I have no news for you of any sort.” 

But we have some for you, sir,” said Harry. 

“ Eh ? What ? You have news for me ? ” 
“Yes. The Eastern Star sunk nearly seven 
months ago, with Major Bengough on board. 
We have news of our uncle’s death at sea ; so, 
after what you said to us yesterday, we’re pre- 
pared to leave your house — now.” 

“At once,” I put in, so that Harry’s plain 
meaning might be made plainer still. “ This 
morning.” 

“You have news — positive news — of your 
uncle’s death at sea ? ” 

“Yes, sir, in his own hand.” And again Harry 
told the strange story of what had happened on 


A Startling Revelation 29 

the evening before, concluding by placing the 
sea-borne message itself upon the table. 

Strange — strange indeed,” murmured Dr. 
Consett. How strange that this news should 
have been, as it were, washed into your hands, 
saving time — saving at least four clear days’ un- 
necessary delay ! There is the finger of Prov- 
idence in it. I can see the finger of Providence in 
the whole thing,” he continued in a louder voice ; 
“ you know I have always taught you to be- 
lieve in the finger of Providence. You can see 
for yourselves, now, its working in what worldly 
men would call the accidental circumstance that the 
bottle containing this — this afflicting intelligence 
was almost thrown up at your feet, instead of 
drifting along the coast. It is probable that the 
finger of Providence, in directing that unconscious 
bottle so that it bobbed about the bows of Dan 
Runciman’s boat — I think you said it bobbed 
about the bows of Dan Runciman’s boat — saved 
me at least four clear days’ expenses with you if 
you are really going this morning.” 

Of our own volition we cut the interview short. 
I believe that he asked us a few questions, but I 
don’t remember what they were. I know that 
he told us to see him again before we went, and I 
know that we instantly made up our minds not to. 

We didn’t go into morning school. Long before 
it was over, we had finished packing up. We 
carried our two boxes ourselves downstairs, and 


30 


Friend or Fortune 


as far as the gates, but there we found Dan and 
Joe standing by,” and nothing would satisfy 
them but acting as our porters to the station. 

Beechy Bay is connected by a loop line with 
Exeter. The train in from Exeter about mid- 
day left again for Exeter soon after midday, and, 
Exeter being our first stage for London, we had 
fixed on this train for the start of our journey. 
The boys would just have time to get down to 
the station after morning school to see us off. 

Not without a few lingering glances at the 
place where we’d spent six years together — a big 
slice out of sixteen years of life — we turned our 
backs on it, and set out resolutely to follow Dan 
and Joe. 

Ten minutes later the train steamed in — in five 
minutes she was due out again. 

We stood on the platform — third-class single 
tickets clasped safely in our one purse — all ready 
to get in when the little platform should be clear 
of the incoming passengers. Joe and Dan were 
already sorrowfully stowing our boxes in the 
guard’s break. Where were the boys ? 

They came with a rush and a roar. Not only 
our own special cronies, not only the boys of the 
big dormitory, but the whole school — I scarcely 
think that one was absent. If anything had been 
wanting to prove the popularity of Harry Saxon, 
such a demonstration as that stationful of boys 
kicked up would have done it. 


A Startling Revelation 31 

Hoots for The Patient One clashed with shouts 
for Harry, and even for me. Our hands got 
swamped in the sea of outstretched palms around 
us. The most extraordinary donations were 
forced upon us — pen-knives, a box of sardines, a 
collection of foreign stamps, two saveloys, a Book 
of Common Prayer, and some cold potatoes were 
amongst the miscellaneous articles shoved into 
our pockets. 

The good-tempered stationmaster regarded the 
scene with a pleasant smile. Near him — looking, 
I thought, interested, but without any smile on 
his grave, graybearded ’face — stood a gentleman 
whom I had seen alight from a first-class compart- 
ment when the train came in. 

Just as the bell began to ring, and we were on 
the very point of taking our seats, Curly Locks 
restored momentary order. Cap in hand, he 
shouted — 

Now then, for the last time, and all together, 
taking the time from me, ‘ Three cheers for Harry 
Saxon and Ralph Towers. Hip, hip, hip, hur- 
ray ! Hurray ! Hurray ! ’ ” 

Whatever British schoolboys cannot do, they 
can shout ; and in the three lusty cheers that 
broke out at Curly’s demand the boys of Beechy 
Bay Academy maintained the national reputation. 

As the last Hurray ! ” died away, the grave- 
faced, calm-looking, gray-bearded stranger who 
had been standing near the stationmaster stepped 


32 


Friend or Fortune 


straight up to the now open door of the carriage. 
With one hand he touched Harry, and me with 
the other. We turned in surprise. 

‘‘ Harry Saxon ? ” 

*‘Yes, sir.” 

** Ralph Towers? ” 

**Yes, sir.” 

“ Where are you going ? ” 

Why do you ask, sir ? ” demanded Harry. 

^‘To London,” answered I. 

Not by this train, at all events,” said the mys- 
terious stranger, calmly and firmly. “ If your 
boxes are in — or anything of that sort — have 
them taken out at once.” 

Joe Runciman was standing near, and caught 
these words, though they were uttered by no 
means loudly. % 

^‘Not to go, sir? Boxes out, sir? Yes, sir,” 
and he’d rushed to the brake and hauled out those 
boxes in a twinkling. 

“ Stand a little back with me, please. Station- 
master, these young gentlemen will not go by the 
train. You can start it.” 

The speaker added something that was audible 
to the stationmaster only. The latter touched 
his cap, gave the signal, and away puffed the 
engine. 

“ Come into the booking-office, and get your 
money back in exchange for your tickets.” 

“ Who — who are you, sir ? ” asked Harry bluntly. 


A Startling Revelation 33 

Even he had been so taken aback that he’d only 
just found his tongue again. 

“I’ll tell you directly. Come and get your 
money back. And please ask all those friends of 
yours to go away. My men ” — this to Dan and 
Joe — “ take those boxes where they came from. 
Now, young gentlemen.” 

All things considered, and taking into special 
account the stranger’s calmly masterful manner, I 
suppose it is not to be wondered at that we did 
what he told us to. 

But in the booking-office we both repeated the 
question — 

“ Who are you, sir ? ” 

“I am Mr. John Dexton,” he answered, “ of 
Lincoln’s Inn ! Were you going to London to 
see me ? ” 

“We were certainly going to call on you — 
first, sir,” replied Harry, hesitatingly. 

“ So I Judged. Take me to Dr. Consett’s.” 

We walked on either side of him, our brains in 
a bit of a whirl. I am sure that Harry’s brain 
was in a bit of a whirl as well as mine, because 
our feelings were always the same. 

“ What has Mr. Dexton come down here for ? ” 
was the uppermost thought in our minds. 

The walk to the school was not a long one, but 
before it was over we had told him all we had to 
tell, and, in return, he had told us — nothing. 

3 


34 


Friend or Fortune 


We took him direct to the sanctum itself, and 
Harry rapped his knuckles on the door. 

** Come in.” 

‘‘ Come in with me,” said Mr. Dexton. 

As, in about half a dozen words — he spoke as 
though he was in the habit of charging himself 
three-and-sixpence a word, and was a frugal man 
— he introduced himself to Dr. Job Consett, the 
face of the Patient One was a study. He mo- 
tioned his visitor to a seat, and turned to us. 

“ Leave the room.” 

No ; let them stop.” 

“ Wouldn’t it be better, as, I presume, you have 
come to talk about these lads — wouldn’t it be 
better that they should not be present at our 
interview ? ” 

No. What I have to say is more to them 
than to you, Dr. Consett, and there is no occasion 
for me to say it twice. Let them remain.” 

Wasn’t it jolly to hear the harsh, overbearing 
master of Beechy Bay Academy spoken to in this 
cool manner ! He bowed, but scowled as he re- 
plied, “ As you will, sir.” 

The dead silence that followed was broken by 
the calm voice of the lawyer — calmer than ever. 

‘‘Apart from the evidence in the possession of 
these young gentlemen, such other information 
has come to hand respecting the Eastern Star as 
to put her loss at sea beyond doubt. For reasons 
into which I need not enter, the underwriters 


A Startling Revelation 35 

long had hopes that she would still be heard of. 
Those hopes have now been proved to have been 
without foundation, and the ship was yesterday 
posted at Lloyd’s as having foundered with all 
on board. Not a word has been received of a 
solitary survivor. In these circumstances, the 
death of Major Gabriel Bengough becomes a legal 
assumption.” 

“ And these two boys,” interrupted Consett 
with a snarl, “ are left on my hands friendless as 
well as penniless.” 

** Be good enough not to interrupt me,” was the 
freezing rebuke he received. ‘^The death of 
Major Bengough becomes a legal assumption,” 
repeated Mr. Dexton, “ and probate of his will 
will be granted.” 

** His will? ” snapped in the Doctor eagerly. 

** His will, of which I only received particulars 
from Bombay yesterday afternoon. I had been led 
to understand that the deceased was a poor man. 
He proves to have been a wealthy one. The 
fortune he had acquired represents a yearly income 
of not less than seven thousand pounds a year.” 

Our amiable schoolmaster simply gasped. 

Seven thousand a year ! ” 

Not less than seven thousand pounds a year. 
The whole of this income passes to ” 

** To whom ? ” 

‘‘To whichever is the elder of his two nephews, 
Ralph Towers and Harry Saxon.” 


36 


Friend or Fortune 


CHAPTER V. 

WHAT HAPPENED. 

D r. CONSETT Sprang to his feet and leaped 
at me. He seized my hand and wrung it 
in a regular spasm of affection, so to speak. 

My dear lad,” he gurgled, God bless you ! ! 

Seven thousand a year ! My dear lad ! Let’s j 

see: you are the elder? You’re a trifle — a trifle, I 

but that’s enough — a trifle older than your — your 
dear cousin, Harry Saxon, here.’’ 

“ No, I’m not,” I cried ; “ his birthday’s a fort- 
night ahead of mine.” 

‘‘ Oh, of course ! I forgot.” 

If my hand had been a hot potato he couldn’t 
have dropped it more quickly than he did. He 
got at Harry with a bound. 

God bless you, Harry, my dear lad ! Always 
my favorite boy ; my particular and special seven 
thousand — I mean my special and particular 
pride. Talk about the finger of Providence ! 
This — this is the hand ! Stand out of your 
cousin’s light. Towers ; why do you push yourself 
forward so ? ” 


What Happened 37 

With a look of disgust upon his honest face, 
Harry shook himself free from the hands that 
were fawning upon him. 

‘‘ Mr. Dexton,” he said, “ this has come upon 
us so suddenly and so very unexpectedly that you 
can’t expect us — Rafe and myself, I mean — to 
grasp it at once. As Rafe has said, I am the 
elder by about a fortnight. Do you mean that 
that accident makes me our uncle’s sole heir ? ” 
Yes. It is desirable to remark that the late 
Major Bengough was a man of peculiar disposi- 
tion, and perhaps even more peculiar habits. 
That much of him I know : but little else. I 
acted for him in nothing but his payments to you. 
Dr. Consett. With the whole of the capital sum 
he had amassed, he purchased, as recently as last 
year, the fine estate of Westwood, near Malpas, 
Cheshire, which, it appears, belonged to the Ben- 
goughs generations ago. The purchase was com- 
pleted on his behalf by a member of a Bombay 
firm of solicitors who have now placed themselves 
in communication with me, that member coming 
to England for the purpose of the purchase, and 
returning as soon as it was effected.” 

Here Mr. Dexton laid upon the table a formi- 
dable bundle of papers, as though for reference. 
Keeping his hand upon them, he continued in 
the same calm tones — 

Before sailing (doubtless to take possession 
of Westwood) Major Bengough executed a will. 


Friend or Fortune 


38 

It is not for me to characterize the provisions of 
that will, but to state them. In brief, their effect, 
as I have said, is that his entire fortune — to wit, 
the demesne of Westwood, with its rent-roll of 
seven thousand a year — passes to the elder of 
you two nephews — yourself. Master Saxon, it 
appears.” 

May I — may my Cousin Rafe and I ask you 
a few questions, sir ? ” 

“ Certainly, my lad,” said Mr. Dexton, more 
genially than he had spoken yet. 

In his own plain, straightforward way Harry 
asked a number of plain straightforward ques- 
tions, which the lawyer answered plainly and 
without hesitation. He said something about 
executors and trustees, and touched upon other 
points. But the one great main fact that filled 
my mind, to the exclusion of details, was that 
Harry was all right for life. Careless of the 
presence of lawyer and preceptor, I grasped his 
hand — the hand for the clasp of which I was, 
before the next day’s sunset, to long as we only 
long for 

“ The touch of a vanished hand.” 

“ Why, Harry, old chap,” I cried, bravo ! 
you’ll be a rich man all your days.” 

And Harry Saxon’s clear, crisp voice — to hear 
which I was, before the next day’s sunset, to 
long as we only long for 


What Happened 39 

“ The sound of a voice that is still ” 

— replied in ringing tones — 

“ Then so will you be, Rafe — we’re CHUMS ! ” 

The news spread like wildfire. Excited knots 
and groups of boys discussed it in all its possible 
(and impossible) aspects. Harry and I were be- 
sieged on all hands with eager requests for a 
repetition of the story. It was well for us that, 
startling as it was, it was still in its main features 
a simple story, and one easily told. 

“ Seven thousand a year ! ” exclaimed Curly 
Locks ; “ why, my godfather isn’t in it.” 

It was past twelve o’clock that night before any 
boy in the big dormitory made the slightest 
attempt to go to sleep. 

“ How can anybody go to sleep,” said one of 
the fellows, laughingly, “ with a chap in the 
room worth seven thousand a year ? ” 

And who was sold up last night by public 
auction,” chuckled Harry. “Oh, I say, we’ve 
settled it together, Rafe and I, that everybody 
is to keep what he bought, but nobody is to pay 
for anything. So you have got to take that fiver 
back to-morrow. Curly. We don’t come into 
fortunes every day.” 

“ The way you put that,” remarked Walter 
Locks seriously, “ shows that you feel that how- 
ever generous your uncle has been to you, Harry, 


40 


Friend or Fortune 


he’s been awfully unjust to your cousin, who was 
just as much his nephew as you.” 

“ I do feel it,” returned Harry impulsively , 

and though Mr. Dexton says I’m bound down by 
a lot of provisions as to keeping the estate in 
order, and as to some other things, I know jolly 
well that I’ll find a way by which Rafe will have 
his whack out of uncle’s money as well as myself. 
It’s fair enough for a horse to win the Derby by 
a neck, but not for an innocent chap to lose a 
fortune by a fortnight.” 

A smothered cheer from both sides of the 
room greeted the enunciation of this sentiment. 

“ I expect that your mother, and not Rafe’s, 
was the major’s favorite sister.” 

“ No ; there’s nothing in that idea at all, for 
he actually didn’t know which of us, under the 
terms of his will, would inherit. ‘The elder of 
my two nephews, the sons of my sisters So-and-so 
and So-and-so ’ — that was the phraseology of the 
will. Mr. Dexton read it so, or distinctly to that 
effect. He said that uncle was a bit of a crank, 
and it’s my idea that this leaving of all to one 
was just a freak, of which we shall never get any 
explanation.” 

“ Has Dexton gone } ” 

“ No ; he’s stopping over to-morrow. You see, 
arrangements have to be made about what’s to 
be done with me till I come of age. Old Consett’s 
mad to keep me here now ; but after the way he 


What Happened 41 

treated Rafe and me before this sudden change 
of fortune, I’ll take care — and he knows it — that 
neither of us stops with him.” 

“ I should think not,” came from several quar- 
ters. At last snores from one bed and another 
told their own tales. 

“ Good-night,” muttered some drowsy voices, 
and others joined the sleepers. 

“ I say,” burst out Locks, in a last startling 
question, supposing you were to die, Harry, 
who’d take your place, and be owner of all this 
property ? ” 

‘‘ Don’t you talk about Harry Saxon dying,” 
I cried indignantly. 

“ I don’t want to, Rafe,” answered Curly, rather 
inconsistently ; ‘‘ but all the same, supposing he 
did, who’d inherit ? ” 

** If you must know, /should,” I said. *Ht 
happens that that very point was raised and 
made clear. I should be what Mr. Dexton called 
Harry’s next-of-kin. If he were to die to-morrow, 
I should come in for the lot.” 

I answered lightly, little dreaming that in 
a few hours’ time, by those who heard them, 
so cruel a light would be thrown upon my 
words. 

The next day was Saturday, and a whole holi- 
day. Even now I don’t like to think of what 
happened — I never shall like to think of what 


42 


Friend or Fortune 


happened. I will try to write quickly of — of 
what happened. 

I had set my mind on spending the day with 
Harry on Bay Island — we certainly had enough 
to talk about. 

In the presence of about a dozen of our school- 
mates I suggested the trip to him. 

For some reason or another he didn’t want to 
come. I urged him to do so — strongly. 

Too good-natured ever to give first place to his 
own desires, he yielded, and we started off. Some 
of the others offered to join us ; but I put them 
off — I wanted Harry all to myself. 

Arrived on the shore, we found the little Curlew 
beached. We ran her to the water’s edge, jumped 
in, and shoved off. Harry took one oar and I the 
other, and a few minutes’ rowing brought us to 
the island. 

We made the boat fast and landed. 

An hour passed pleasantly enough in our usual 
pursuits on the spot. 

Then an idea suggested itself to me. 

“ Harry,” I said, let’s go for a sail — the wind’s 
serving nicely. We can run round the headland 
and back in no time.” 

“ I’d rather not come, old man,” Harry replied, 
“ unless, of course, you’d particularly prefer my 
company to my room. I’m on the track of some 
rare specimens for my museum — old Curly will 
have to let me have it back now — and unless I get 


What Happened 43 

’em before the tide’s higher I shan’t be able to 
get ’em at all. But it’s a soldier’s wind, and you 
can manage the boat easily enough single-handed. 
Go by yourself, Rafe.” 

I took him at his word — there was no reason 
why I should not. 

I cast loose the Curlew's painter, hoisted her 
sail, and stood out to sea. 

A few laughing words of farewell were ex- 
changed between Harry on the island and me on 
the boat as she got under way. 

Oh, what a long farewell it was to be ! 

Out I sailed beyond the headland’s farthest 
point. Then, coming about, I headed the Curlew 
shoreward, but towards the leeward of the prom- 
ontory, coasting which on its westward side I 
shut myself out of sight of the island. The 
weather changed suddenly. The wind veered 
several points, and blew in gusts that rapidly 
grew stormier. The waves began to rise higher, 
and to hiss angrily as the bows of my little craft 
cut through them. Out at sea I saw the white 
horses riding the billows. 

I would run for the island now at once and take 
Harry on board, so that we might make for the 
shore — though we both liked a bit of a breeze. 

I had to take in three reefs before I fetched 
the extremity of the headland, which I had a 
little difficulty in weathering. Having done so, I 
ran for Bay Island. 


44 


Friend or Fortune 


I hailed loudly as I approached it. 

No answering hail greeted my ears. 

Landing, I gazed around me. 

Where was my chum ? He was nowhere to be 
seen. 

I hailed again — again — and yet again. 

But no voice replied. 

It took me less than half an hour to explore 
every nook, every corner, every cranny. 

Harry Saxon was nowhere on the island ! 

How unlike him it was to have done what, of 
course, he must have done. How unlike him it 
was to go ashore by means of some passing 
rowing-boat or smack, instead of waiting for me. 

But, of course, it would be all right. Of course 
it was all right. If he wasn’t on the beach he’d 
be in the village — very likely at Dan Runciman’s. 
If he wasn’t in the village he’d be at the school ; 
if by any chance he wasn’t at the school, at all 
events he’d be somewhere about. 

Only I’d go after him at once. 

Why, there was somebody making signals to 
me from the beach. It must be — yes, it was — old 
Dan Runciman. Alternately he raised and low- 
ered both of his open hands. 

I knew what he meant. The wind was blowing 
off the shore now, and blowing so hard — having 
increased in violence during every moment I was 
searching the island — that I wasn’t to set sail. 


What Happened 45 

But the tide had turned, and was running out 
now so strongly that could I get over it with 
either oars or sculls in the teeth of the gale ? 

Though it was doubtful, I must chance it, be- 
cause, although, of course, Harry was ashore, 
still, to see him there would make assurance 
doubly sure. 

But — and the significance of the fact for the 
first time burst upon me, so to speak, like a flash 
— if he had gone ashore, how was it that he had 
left behind him his net, his metal box, his rod 
and line, all lying close to my feet ? 

With feverish haste I hurried to embark. Be- 
fore I could get off, I noticed Dan pulling towards 
me in a skiff. 

No, he had seen or heard nothing of him ; his 
first question proved that — 

“ Where’s Master Harry ! Isn’t he with you ? ” 

We made the skiff fast astern, and pulled for the 
beach. Not there, not in the village, not in the 
school, not anywhere about. 

Harry Saxon hadn’t come ashore ! 

All the afternoon, all the evening, the search 
was continued. 

Men and boys went along the coast in both 
directions ; others walked and drove inland. 

Later on, as the boats came in, eager question- 
ers awaited them. 

No news from left or right, from land or sea. 


Friend or Fortune 


46 

A cloud was on every brow ; a sorrow in every 
heart ; a horror in every mind. 

** Harry Saxon is drowned ! 

Without any thought of wounding me — without 
a thought, I am certain, of saying anything out 
of harmony with what we all felt — somebody ex- 
claimed — 

“ He inherited a fortune yesterday — to die to- 
day. And you, Rafe, come in for it all.” 

“ Oh, don’t, don’t,” I sobbed. IVe forgotten 
that — I’ve forgotten that ! ” 

But you didn’t forget it last night, Ralph 
Towers,” cried Walter Locks, passionately. “You 
took him out this morning — alone. He didn’t 
want to go, but you made him. A lot of us heard 
you,” he went on furiously, “and you wouldn’t 
let any of us go with you. You took him out 
alone ; you came back alive and well, safe and 
sound. Where’s Harry ? ” 

A score of voices joined his in challenging me— 

“ What have you done with Harry Saxon ? ’ ’ 


Was Harry Saxon Murdered 47 


CHAPTER VI. 

WAS HARRY SAXON MURDERED? 

I S it to be wondered at that through all the 
weary hours of that night I never closed 
my eyes ? Before the breaking of the Sabbath 
dawn I rose and groped my way downstairs, 
and out of the house. The peep-o'-day was 
just showing, and soon all the eastern sky grew 
gray, and the gray grew white, and the white 
red. 

I knocked at the door of Dan Runciman’s cot- 
tage, and Dan himself opened it, ready dressed. 
He, too, had been early up and out. 

Dan, any news ? ” 

“Yes, sir.” 

“ Quick, Dan, quick ! What is it ? Good or 
bad ? Tell me quickly ! ” 

“ My news is nothing to tell. Master Ralph ; it’s 
something to see. Look ! ” — and he turned the 
handle of the door of his tiny sitting-room and 
pointed. There on the table lay the coat and cap 
which Harry had worn the previous day, and near 
them was one of his boots. 


Friend or Fortune 


48 

** Washed up by the tide, sir.” 

The sight of them seemed to stab me. I think 
I grew whiter. I know that my heart beat so fast 
and painfully that I almost fainted, for the first 
time in my life. I heard Dan's voice, but I heard 
it as we seem to hear the unreal voices that speak 
in dreams. 

“ Poor Master Harry must have took it into his 
head to go for a swim, and stripped at a place 
where the sea would reach at flood. Cramp must 
have seized him, and the tide carried his body out 
to sea.” 

Joe came downstairs, and shook hands with me 
silently. He was going to say something, but a 
look at my face checked him. 

Dan took me into the room behind, and spread 
a clean white cloth upon the table, and noiselessly 
set it for breakfast. I swallowed a cup of hot 
tea, and then said good-bye. Perhaps after I had 
walked far along the cliff-top my brain would not 
feel so numb. 

You’ll come up to the house at once, Dan, 
won’t you, or you, Joe, if — if you hear anything, 
or if any more news comes ashore ? ” 

“ Aye, sir ; we will, at once.” 

As I reached the school-house two hours later, 
the first gong was sounding for breakfast, and the 
boys were falling in to be marched to the “ long 
room.” But I was told that the Doctor had 
inquired for me; I was to go to him at once. 


Was Harry Saxon Murdered 49 

Already the news was known, to the household 
and to him, of what the tide had washed up. 

For the last time in my life I entered his sanc- 
tum. I don’t know how it was, but I did not at 
first look at him but beyond him — out through the 
open windows. The soft air of the summer morn- 
ing was full of the sunshine that, away in the dis- 
tance, turned the blue of the sea into the yellow 
of gold. I remember how the trees were bowing 
their green heads as though in salutation of the 
majesty of the new-born day. I remember that 
their branches rustled, that birds sang. I can 
remember the humming of bees, the scent of 
flowers. 

I turned my gaze upon the fair scene without 
to look upon Job Consett within. 

His crafty face was pale, his shifty eyes were 
(for once) fixed upon me piercingly. 

Was it as he looked at me — mistaking the pallor 
of my cheeks, and the dulness of my eyes, and, 
perhaps, the trembling of my hands, as tokens of 
the working of a guilty conscience — was it as he 
looked upon me that he resolved upon the bold, 
rash move he made ? 

After all, what would he risk by doing what it 
was in his mind to do ? What would he lose if 
his shot in the dark missed its target ? 

On the other hand, I was only a lad of sixteen. 
If his shot should hit home, how easy, at such an 
age, so to entangle me as that I should be power- 
4 


50 


Friend or Fortune 


less to shake off the clutch of his fingers upon me 
when I should command the rent-roll of 'West- 
wood ! 

He drew the bow, and the arrow singed its un- 
certain flight. 

His hands trembled as he put them on my 
shoulders; his voice, sunk to a hoarse, rasping 
whisper, shook. 

“ Ralph, how did you do it ? Was it a push 
from the boat, far enough away from land ? Tell 
me how you did it. Give me your secret and I 
will give you — my silence. How did you murder 
Harry Saxon ? ” 

With both hands I seized him by the throat, 
and dragged him to the door, to open which I 
only released one hand. 

With a strength which nothing but the tempo- 
rary madness of my passion could have put into 
my arms, I dragged him along all the intervening 
passages to the long room. Crashing the door 
open with my foot, I dragged him inside — still by 
the throat. 

Still by the throat, I dragged him to the raised 
upper table, where were the under masters and 
Mr. Dexton. 

In sight of them all — men and boys — as they 
sprang to their feet, I flung Job Consett to the 
floor ; then I faced them — all. 

There are boys here,” I panted, “ my own 
school-fellows, who suspect me of having had a 


Was Harry Saxon Murdered 51 

hand in the death of my cousin Harry Saxon. 
This man ” — and I pointed a scornful but quiver- 
ing finger to the prostrate form at my feet — has 
accused me of his murder ! 

“ Fm going away. If ever I enter this place 
again, it will be because Harry isn’t dead, and 
I’ve found him, or because I’ve fathomed the 
mystery surrounding his death. 

As for the miserable money, if Harry’s alive 
it’s his. If he’s dead it’s mine. But I won’t bene- 
fit by one penny of it — I won’t touch one coin of 
it until I can touch it with hands that nobody 
shall dare to suspect of having blood on them ; 
no, not if I die a pauper in the workhouse, or 
from starvation on the roadside or in the gutter ! 

‘‘ I’ll try to prove myself not quite unworthy 
of having been Harry Saxon’s chosen chum. In 
a sense, I’m placed between a Friend on one side 
and a Fortune on the other. I’ll stick to my 
Friend ! 


52 


Friend or Fortune 


CHAPTER VII. 

FACING THE WORLD WITH A “ FIVER.” 

OT a hand was raised to stop me as I rushed 



1 >1 from the room. Bolting straight upstairs, 
I shouldered my box, marched to the front door, 
and let myself out. 

My eyes were blinded by passionate tears as, 
without a single look behind this time, I strode 
away down the dusty road. I hastened my pace 
at every step, till the school-house and its sur- 
roundings were, I knew, out of sight. 

Then I halted. Placing my box close to the 
green hedgerow, I threw myself down beside it. 
Where was I going, and what was I going to do ? 
The clearest idea I had was that of getting to 
London, somehow, as soon as possible — which is 
not saying much for the lucidity of my other 
ideas. If I could only reach the great city, I had 
vague thoughts of finding there “ something to 
do.” But even if I tramped it I couldn’t get 
there without money. Had I any ? 

It wasn’t necessary for me to search my pockets 
— I knew that they were empty of gold, silver, or 


Facing the World with a “Fiver” 53 

even copper. The note that Curly Locks had 
given us, had pressed upon Harry and me after 
the sale in the big dormitory, we had given back 
to him. And if we hadn’t, I couldn’t have touched 
a farthing of Locks’s money after he had said — 
what he had said. 

My meditations were interrupted by the sight 
of two blurred figures coming towards me from 
far down the road. When they had approached 
a little nearer, and after I had drawn my hand 
across my eyes, the blurred figures resolved them- 
selves into the burly forms of Dan and Joe Run- 
ciman. My conscience smote me for my thought 
of leaving Beechy Bay without bidding them 
good-bye. 

I jumped to my feet, and walked quickly for- 
ward to meet them. 

I knew before we had exchanged a word where 
they were going, and for what purpose, for Dan 
was carrying the things the tide had washed up — 
the articles he had shown me a few hours before. 
They were taking them to the school-house. 

The old fisherman’s red face grew very grave as 
he listened to my story, and Joe shuffled his feet 
and twisted his big fingers uneasily. 

Well, sir,” said Dan slowly at last, “ it’s not 
for me to say either * bide ’ or * go,’ but I do say 
bide for to-day — bide for to-day and to-night in 
my cottage. Don’t you understand why. Master 
Rafe?” 


54 


Friend or Fortune 


The tide, you know,” put in Joe rather huskily, 

‘‘ the next tide might ” 

Might wash something else of poor Harry’s 
ashore? ” I said. 

“ Might wash him ashore, sir.” 

“ Friends will be all along the coast. Master 
Rafe, looking for it.” 

I shivered at that last word. I understood 
well enough now what Dan meant, and fell in 
with his suggestion without any further hesita- 
tion. 

Dan went on by himself; Joe, lifting my box 
with an ease that I envied, turned back, and 
walked with me to the little white cottage on the 
beach, where his father presently joined us. 

“ I see the lawyer gennelman from London,” 
he remarked. Says he to me, sharp like — 

You know Master Ralph Towers?’ 

* Yes, sir,’ I says, truthful. 

“ ‘ Did you meet him as you came here?’ he 
asks. 

“ ‘Yes, sir,’ I replies, also truthful. 

“ ‘ Where ? ’ he says. 

“ ‘ On the road to the station, sir,’ says I, like- 
wise truthful still. 

“ ‘ There’s no other train out to-day but the one 
o’clock to Exeter ? ’ 

“ ‘ No, sir,’ and with that I come away. He’ll 
be at the station for certain, to stop you going by 
the train.” 


Facing the World with a “Fiver” 5$ 

“ Then he’ll be there to-morrow for the same 
purpose,” I said a little nervously. 

“ To-morrow’s Monday. Nokes, the carrier, 
starts from the Blue Anchor with his little van 
for Exeter, at eight o’clock.” 

“ So he does, Joe ; thank you for reminding me. 
I’ll go with him as far as Exeter, and then on to 
London by the train.” 

But almost with the words came the embar- 
rassing thought, “ How am I going to pay Nokes 
for the ride to Exeter, and the railway company 
for my journey to London ? ” and somehow (per- 
haps a cloud on my face told its own tale) the 
thought communicated itself to Dan and Joe 
simultaneously, for I saw them look at each other 
meaningly at the same moment. Shortly after- 
wards they made an excuse for going out to- 
gether. I am certain that they went to concoct 
the plot that they carried out later on : when the 
lamp had been lit after supper. In the mean time 
they had managed to elicit from me a statement 
as to the condition of my finances. 

Old Dan sat at one end of the small table, and 
young Joe at the other, each smoking black 
tobacco from white clays ; I choked about midway 
between them. 

Dan opened the ball by tipping Joe such a tre- 
mendous wink that it might almost have been 
heard. 

^‘Joe!” 


Friend or Fortune 


56 

“ What is it, old ’un ? 

Joe often called his father ‘‘ old ’un,” but in 
such a manner as to rob the term of all sugges- 
tion of disrespect. As he spoke he returned the 
paternal wink with filial fidelity of artfulness be- 
tween them ; it is a wonder to me that this pair 
of whole-hearted, stout-souled, big-bodied in- 
nocents didn’t make the lamp-flame shake with 
their winking. 

“About them inwestments of ours, Joe.” 

“Ah ! you’re quite right, father; we did ought 
to see to ’em.” 

“ Undoubted, Joey,” said Dan firmly. “ I shall 
sleep easier of a night ” 

“ When the stormy winds do blow,” suggested 
his son. 

“ O-o,” added Dan with awful solemnity, ap- 
parently in order to give the proper rhythmical 
ring to the quotation. “ I shall sleep easier of a 
night, when the stormy winds do blow-o-o — as 
you truly remark, Joe — with that there money 
out o’ the house, and inwested in — in — in things.” 

He appeared to realize that this was a trifle 
vague, and hastened to get upon firmer ground. 
With the air of an acknowledged expert in matters 
financial, he ruled — 

“To keep on the strick proper tack, a inwest- 
ment is not a inwestment until it’s inwested. 
Never forget that, Joey.” 

“ No, old ’un, I won’t,” promised Joe, who 


Facing the World with a “Fiver"’ 57 

looked a little awe-stricken at his father’s philo- 
sophical mastery of the subject he had brought 
forward. 

Why, Joe,” cried the financial expert in tones 
intended to convey the impression that an idea 
had just struck him, bless my soul if this here 
going away of Master Rafe to London can’t be 
sort of turned so’s to help us out of this inwesting 
mess as we’re in.” 

“ So it can — so it can, old ’un,” agreed Joe de- 
lightedly. “ Go on — tell him all about it.” 

Dan Runciman took his pipe out of his mouth 
as he turned to me, and waved it in graceful 
emphasis of some of his chief points. 

Well, you see. Master Rafe, it’s just like this 
here. The profits as me and Joe have been 
a-making out o’ that there fishing-boat of ours — 
the profits alone, not to say anything about our 
losses — no, no, I don’t mean that ; I just mean 
the profits — them profits as I’ve made alloosions 
to — them profits have been — they’ve been — what 
have they been, Joey ? ” 

“ Enormious,” answered Joe. 

** That’s it — that’s the word. Enormious. 
Why, they’ve been that enormious that this is 
what we’ve come to. We’ve got a matter o’ five 
pound to inwest, and we’re both blowed if we 
know how for to go about it. Then here you 
come along just in the nick o’ time, all sail spread 
for London, as is well knowed to be the very 


Friend or Fortune 


58 

place for inwestments of all sorts. That’s where 
jyou* re going to inwest. You’re going to inwest 
yourself there. You’re a-going for to make a 
fortune there. 

'‘Just let me brush that there earwig off your 
coat, Master Rafe.” 

He broke off suddenly to brush his hand across 
the region of my chest, and then resumed 
quickly — 

“ So me and Joe inwests our inwestment in 
you — in fact, you becomes our inwestment. You 
go to London, makes a fortune ” 

“ Twice Lord Mayor o’ London town,” mur- 
mured Joe. 

“Very good, Joe — very good indeed. As I 
was making alloosions to, off you go, make a 
fortune, comes back, punches old Consett in the 
’ead or the heye, accordin’ as he may choose to 
take it, and pays back me and Joe.” 

He had spoken so rapidly — since brushing away 
that earwig — that I felt quite mystified. 

“ Pay you back what, Dan ? ” I asked. 

“ That there five-pound note as you’ve got in 
your outside breast-pocket. Now, don’t go for 
to deny you’ve got it, because I’ve got a heye- 
witness as saw me shove it in — my son Joe 
here.” 

I hastily put my hand inside my pocket. Sure 
enough, as neatly as a conjurer, old Dan had 
slipped in a five-pound Bank of England note 


Facing the World with a Fiver” 59 

when he brushed off the earwig. For the second 
time in my life I held “ a fiver ” in my own fingers. 
I can’t remember the words I used to explain to 
them that I saw through their dodge, and couldn’t 
accept their generous help ; but I remember that 
their tobacco-smoke had got into my eyes fear- 
fully, and I remember also how quickly they 
both “ picked me up.” 

“ Now, don’t you go running away with that 
‘ generous help ’ deloosion in your noddle ! ” 
roared old Joe, with an honest attempt to look 
savage. “ There’s nothing in the ‘ generous help ’ 
line in — in — in — in — there’s nothing of the kind 
kep in this shop. What you’ve got there ain’t 
a gift, but a inwestment, to be returned with — 

with Confound it, Joe! why don’t you help 

me? What’s it got to be returned with ! Not 
thanks, but ” 

“ Interest, old ’un ; that’s it — interest.” 

“ Interest it is. Thank’ee, lad ; you’re quite 
right. Master Rafe, if that there fiver are not 

returned with interest, you’ll be — you’ll be 

Here, Joe, what willh^ be? ” 

It was Joe’s turn to triumph now. He brought 
his fist down heavily on the table as he delivered 
himself of the portentous sentence — 

“ He’ll be persecuted with the utmost rigger 
of the Law ! ” 

Dan gave vent to a low, long whistle. 

“Think o’ that, now? You’ll be persecuted 


6o 


Friend or Fortune 


with the most utmosterest vigger of me, and Joe, 
and the Law ! ” 

With the note outstretched in my hand towards 
Dan, I tried to refuse again. 

“ Joe, if he won't be inwested in, just light the 
fire with the inwestment to-morrow morning.” 

At that I put the note back into my pocket, 
and tried to stammer a few words of what I felt ; 
but 

“ Where’s Rafe’s candle, Joe? He’s a-going to 
turn in. Just show our inwestment upstairs.” 

I knew the next morning, without asking any 
questions, that neither it nor any further “ news” 
had been washed up by the tide.” 

Dan and Joe both saw me off by the carrier’s 
van. Till it drove out of sight they stood close 
together looking after it, and waving a series of 
last parting salutes. 

And so, with my right hand still crushed out 
of shape by the grasp of their right hands, I started 
off to face the world with a “ fiver” — their fiver ” 
— in my pocket. Long afterwards I knew that 
the first thing they did after the disappearance of 
the carriers’ van was to launch the Curlew in order 
to work for the wherewithal to buy their next 
meal. 

“ Kind hearts are more than coronets.” 


Pooley de Vere Pullet 


6i 


CHAPTER VIII. 

POOLEY DE VERE PULLET. 

N OKES the carrier was a taciturn old man. 

During the whole of our journey he 
scarcely spoke a word to me. I was glad of it, 
for I was in no mood for conversation, and his 
silence gave me a chance of reflection. 

I had plenty to think about. Once or twice 
the thought crossed my mind that I was acting 
foolishly and inconsiderately. What benefit could 
arise, either to others or myself, from the course 
upon which I had so suddenly and so passionately 
determined ? As for clearing up the mystery of 
Harry’s disappearance, and so clearing myself 
from the dreadful suspicion which had been 
attached to me, the conviction of my own help- 
lessness obtruded itself more and more plainly. 

How was I to make a start ? What clue had I 
to make a beginning with? None. For the 
faintest hint to guide me in such a task, I was 
absolutely dependent upon fate — upon chance. 

But to such thoughts I would give no place in 
my mind. It might be that chance might offer 


62 


Friend or Fortune 


me, sooner or later, the clue I wanted — though it 
was as true that I must wait for it as that I could 
do nothing without it. In the mean time I could 
face the world for myself — and I would. I could 
refuse to benefit by the revenue of Westwood, 
which would in due course all legally be mine by 
the operation of the same rule of law which had 
made Major Bengough’s death what Mr. Dexton 
had called a legal assumption, even if poor Harry’s 
body were never found ; and I would so refuse. 
I had a vague idea of making a fortune on my 
own account. Other boys had run away and 
made fortunes with less than five pounds. Why 
shouldn’t I ? 

It isn’t worth while to go any deeper into my 
cogitations, because I shall have my hands fairly 
full in telling what I did do, and what happened 
to me and to others in doing it all, without 
troubling about any very searching analysis of 
my motives. I dare say that in similar circum- 
stances now, the calmer judgment of a riper age 
would dictate a very different course from the one 
I pursued ; but — between ourselves — I’d willingly 
swap some of the “calmer judgment ” for those 
younger years again. 

Besides driving very slowly, Nokes stopped at 
every village and hamlet to pick up parcels, and 
made several detours in favor of out-of-the-way 
places. We were consequently so long upon the 
road that I just missed the train I hoped to catch. 


Pooley de Vere Pullet 63 

Finding that I had several hours to wile away 
before the next fast train started for London, I 
deposited my box in the cloak-room, and sallied 
from the station to explore the quaint and pict- 
uresque old city of Exeter, returning about half 
an hour before the up express was due. 

A number of expectant passengers were waiting 
near the ticket-office for the opening of the 
window. One of these attracted my instant and 
particular attention. If I describe his clothes 
first and the rest of him afterwards, I shall only 
be observing the order proper to the occasion, 
for the former were the most striking things 
about him. They were in the height of the 
fashion. His legs were encased in a pair of very 
light trousers, which fell from the knees and 
reached to the feet without a single unbecoming 
crease or wrinkle. At the parting of the ways ” 
of a precipitate black cutaway jacket an elongated 
link of yellow watch-chain showed itself to ad- 
vantage against a background of white waistcoat. 
A satin cravat glistened at the foot of a regular 
church-steeple of a collar, which soared towards 
the level of its wearer’s ears, and almost attained 
it. Not to dwell upon other details, the entire 
structure was crowned with that abomination of 
all non-public schoolboys — a silk hat of the chim- 
ney order of architecture. 

The peg upon which all this finery hung was a 
lady-like looking young fellow, who might have 


Friend or Fortune 


64 

been cither a little over or a little under the age 
which has been fixed upon as that of manhood. 
His hair was so light in color that with the sun 
upon it it looked almost white. His eyes and 
complexion were also — I was going to say girl- 
ishly — fair. His upper lip was fluffy with yellow 
down. I don’t suppose I should have taken so 
much notice of this stranger had I not quickly 
become aware that he was taking notice of me. 
Although he didn’t stare at me — and always 
averted his glances when he found they were de- 
tected — his looks in my direction were, to say the 
least, such as to betoken a marked interest in 
either myself or my appearance — or both. 

The window went up with a bang. The dandy 
and myself were amongst the first to present our- 
selves before it, he being immediately in front of 
me. After taking his own ticket and moving on, 
he paused and half-turned his head. I felt posi- 
tive that he did so in order to hear for what 
station I demanded a ticket. This increased 
the ire that I had already begun to nurse against 
him. 

I walked in company with a porter to the cloak- 
room in order to redeem my box. As the man 
shouldered it I wheeled about to follow him down 
the platform. With the first step I took I trod 
on the toes of the ** fair unknown,” who colored 
up guiltily, and hastily withdrew his eyes from 
the porter’s burden. He had not tracked me 


Pooley de Vere Pullet 65 

along the platform, but, I was convinced, had en- 
deavored to read the label on my property. 

I was to endure a still further annoyance at his 
hands, for, facing sharply round as the porter 
halted and lowered my box, I detected him close 
in our wake. This time he marched straight up 
to me and spoke. 

I beg your pardon,” he said, politely enough, 
but with something of a lisp and drawl that his 
general appearance justified the expectation of. 

I beg your pardon — my name is Pullet — Pooley 
de Vere Pullet. Are you Walph Towers? ” 

“ Yes,” I replied, amazed at being thus identi- 
fied. 

The next moment Mr. Pooley de Vere Pullet 
was shaking me by the hand, and giving vent to 
the singular announcement — 

Fm a cweature of impulse. There’s more in 
this than meets the optic ! ” 

5 


66 


Friend or Fortune 


CHAPTER IX. 

RED LIGHTS AHEAD! 

B efore I had time to recover from my 
astonishment, the London express thun- 
dered into the station. 

“ Come along — we’ll twavel together, shall we ? 
Here’s an empty compartment.” 

We stepped into the unoccupied carriage he had 
espied, a porter handed him in a neatly strapped 
Gladstone bag, the whistle blew, the door slammed, 
and out we glided. 

My companion eased his trousers at the knees 
to prevent them from bagging, felt his collar to 
make sure that it was on quite straight, by a dex- 
terous movement of his arms slightly protruded 
his shirt-cuffs, and laid himself out to talk. 

“To make a short story long,” he remarked 
placidly, “ let me tell you all about myself. Fm 
glad I didn’t lose this twain, or I should have lost 
this opportunity of making your acquaintance, 
you know. It’s a wonder I didn’t, for I’m the 
most awful beggah for losing things you ever met. 


Red Lights Ahead 67 

I lose evewy thing. To begin with, I lost my 
father and my mother before I was old enough to 
dwess myself.” 

I thought of my father and my mother, and I 
suppose my face clouded, for Mr. Pullet asked 
me quickly, with quite a sympathetic ring in his 
voice — 

Have you lost yours, too ? ” 

“Yes,” I answered. 

He held out his hand tome so ingenuously that 
I grasped it warmly. I began to like him better, 
notwithstanding the foppishness of his dress and 
the eccentricities of his mode of speech. Amongst 
the latter was the pronunciation of his “r’s” — 
some he turned boldly into “ w’s,” and was weak 
on all of them. 

“ Losing my pawents,” he continued, “ I was 
thrown back on connections and distant welatives, 
the nearest being my step-aunt, the Honorwable 
Miss Tabitha Pooley. 

“ It’s a wonder I didn’t lose them all — it’s a 
wonder they didn’t all die — for in other wespects 
the losing game was kept up ; I continued to lose 
everything. I used to lose my way to school, and 
had to play the wag — play twuaiit, you know — in 
consequence. And as for pwizes, as sure as ever 
I went in for one I lost it — I lost ’em all. Later 
on I was sent to Oxford. There I lost my 
chawacter. I was wusticated — sent away, you 
know.” 


68 


Friend or Fortune 


‘‘You lost your character?” I said uneasily. 
“ How was that ? ” 

“ It was all because I lost my temper. I lost 
my temper and stwuck a pwoctor. 

“ Since then I have had a number of situations 
■ — for my age, a large number of situations. I’ve 
lost ’em,” one after the other.” 

He paused, and I availed myself of the chance 
to edge in an inquiry. All that he had said tended 
in no way to explain his acquaintance with my 
name and personality. How was it that he had 
recognized me as Ralph Towers? ' 

“ I’m coming to that wapidly,” he assured me. 
“ Where was I ? Oh, yes — my situations. Well, 
after I had lost the last one, about a year ago, I 
settled steadily down to doing nothing. Doing 
nothing would have suited me capitally if I’d had 
sufficient means to do nothing on. That sounds 
odd, but you know what I mean ? ” 

I nodded. 

“Quite so. Well, having nothing but an ab- 
surdly small quarterly allowance from the Hon- 
orwable Tabbie, what was more business-like 
than to ask her to make it a larger one ? I did 
ask her, but she said ‘ no ’ as firmly as though I’d 
offered her mawwiage. That compelled me to 
adopt the dodge I’m still acting on. About once 
a month I write a sort of circular — a ‘ Wound- 
wobin ’ style of thing — to each of my connections 
and distant welatives, asking for a wemittance. 


Red Lights Ahead 69 

Towers, it never comes ! That wemittance never 
comes.’' 

But what has all this to do with ” 

Hold on. I’m coming to your part directly. 
There’s more in all I’ve been saying than meets 
the optic. I’m leading up to your part. You’ll 
soon see where you come in. 

I used to live in the West End of London, but 
having to cut down all ‘ x’s,’ I moved to the North 
East — to Clapton, where I took wooms.” 

“ Took what ? ” 

“ Wooms — chambers — diggings — lodgings. I’ve 
got ’em still : I’m going back to ’em now. Now, 
in the house where my wooms are there also lived, 
till a fortnight or so ago, a very nice chappie 
named Algie Goyles. I made fwiends with him, 
all my older fwiends having got so sick of me. 
All my fwiends seem to get tired of me. Some- 
times I think it must be because I always do my 
best to bowwow money from them.” 

In view of the markedly friendly overtures of 
this singularly candid young man to myself, I 
thought nervously of the change of my five-pound 
note. 

“ I should think that no one of my age has 
ever been more of a nuisance to his friends than 
myself. 

Algie was a bank clerk. A fortnight ago he 
started away on his annual holiday. He went to 
, , . Towers?” 


70 


Friend or Fortune 


“ What is it?” I asked, struck by the suddenly 
earnest tone in which he pronounced my name. 

“ Is my collah stwaight ? ” 

Somewhat pettishly I reassured his mind as to 
the set of his collar. I pricked up my ears as he 
continued. 

“ As I was saying, a fortnight ago Algie Goyles 
went to Beechy Bay. He put up at the Bay 
Hotel. On Saturday evening an alarming tele- 
gwam came from the hotel landlord to our Clapton 
landlady, in consequence of which I left impul- 
sively for Beechy Bay by the njght mail as far as 
Exeter, and from Exeter yesterday morning I 
finished the journey by twap. 

“ Bad news awaited me. Towers. It appears 
that poor Algie went down to the beach on Sat- 
urday and hired a wowing boat.” 

Hired what ? ” 

“ A boat — a wowing boat, you know, which the 
fishermen unfortunately let him go out in alone. 
Now Algie thought he could wow, but I always 
knew that he couldn’t. And a chappie who thinks 
he can do a thing when he can’t do a thing is 
worse at doing a thing than a chappie who can’t 
do a thing and doesn that he can do a thing. 

“ I’ve often watched him attempting to wow on 
the Lea at Clapton. The coxwains of the Club 
boats used to have fits when they saw him, for he 
took up all the wiver ; and as for the bargees they 
told him he couldn’t wow in the most awful Ian- 


Red Lights Ahead 71 

guage. However, he did go out wowing by him- 
self at Beechy Bay on Saturday. Dirty weather 
came on. And he’s gone, poor fellow, boat and 
all. Neither has been seen again. The boat must 
have been driven out to sea, and Algie ...” He 
didn’t say “ drowned,” but I knew that that was 
what he meant. 

Of course, there’s still some hope, but not 
much. I’ve done all I could. I sent a letter to 
the bank, and another to his people in Yorkshire. 
Before I left to-day I met a splendid old fellow — 
your fwiend Wunciman. He told me of your 
heavier loss.” 

Again the cuff-encircled hand was extended 
with the same strangely ingenuous air, and again 
I shook it warmly. 

“He told me a good deal, you know, about you 
and your cousin. And when he found that I 
lived in London, he told me that that was the 
very place you had started for, having left school 
for good, and suggested that I should look out for 
you when I got to town. He said he knew Lon- 
don was a big place, but I should no doubt be 
able to find you by asking people whether they’d 
seen a well-set-up young gentleman with — and 
then he drew your likeness so well that . . . that 
that’s how I spotted you at the station behind us. 
I felt an impulse to act on Wunciman’s tip and 
intwoduce myself. I’ve been subject to impulses 
all my life, and always act on ’em. 


72 


Friend or Fortune 


“ And now, as a cweature of impulse, I’ll tell 
you what my idea is. As you’ll be a stwanger 
in London — Wunciman told me so — why not 
come with me to Clapton and share my wooms 
till you find something to do? If you’ve got 
any money, you know ” — here he spoke more 
quickly, although with a certain hesitation of 
manner which I should scarcely have expected 
after certain of his own remarks about himself — 
if you’ve got any money, you know, you can 
spend some of it in the commissawiat depart- 
ment — in other words, on gwub, you know. If 
you haven’t got any money, we must wub along 
on tick, till we can manage to waise the wind 
together. I shall send out my wound-wobin 
circular for August in a few days’ time, though 
nobody will answer it with a wemittance. What 
do you think of my idea ? ” 

I thought before I answered. In a general 
way, I had heard a good deal of the snares and 
traps set for the feet of the innocent and un- 
wary by the rogues of London town, of whom 
was it possible Mr. Pooley de Vere Pullet was 
one? Was it possible he had heard of my five 
pounds, and was keen on capturing what remained 
of it ? 

No — a hundred times no. There was some- 
thing about him that made me feel ashamed of 
the momentary suspicion. 

But he was a stranger to me ; I had never seen 


Red Lights Ahead 73 

or heard of him before. And he gave me the 
impression of being a spendthrift. If his “ allow- 
ance ” were as small as he made out, he must 
certainly spend a great deal more of it on his 
dress than he had any right to — that is, if he paid 
his tailor. 

On the other hand, there was that ^‘some- 
thing ” about him that drew me to him almost 
against my own judgment. Besides, he evidently 
knew London, and I didn’t ; and his knowledge 
might be of the greatest service to me. He 
might be able to put me up to the very dodges 
of which I feared I might, by myself, be made the 
victim. 

I should have to trust somebody — why not 
Pullet, whose advances, if genuine, were certainly 
complimentary ? 

Suddenly the thought occurred to me. Does 
he know about the fortune ? Does he know how 
I stand with regard to seven thousand a year? 
Did Dan tell him ? 

His ready answers to a few “ leading questions ” 
convinced me that he knew nothing beyond what 
he had stated and hinted. The “ good deal ” 
that old Runciman had told him about Harry and 
me included nothing of what I may call our 
private affairs. But it appeared that, in his guile- 
lessness and warm-heartedness, the “ ancient 
mariner ” had so spoken of me as to convey the 
impression that I was possessed of all the virtues 


74 


Friend or Fortune 


under the sun, and was altogether the most de- 
sirable acquaintance that his hearer could possibly 
fall in with. 

My decision was preceded by only one more 
reflection. Was there not already a sort of link 
between us in the fact that he had lost his friend, 
I my chum, at the same place, on the same day, 
in the same storm ? 

What do you say ? ” he repeated. 

I replied heartily — 

I’ve got about four pounds, and I’ll join 
you.” 

An animated conversation followed, in which 
my new friend proved himself a livelier com- 
panion than ever. We exchanged opinions 
freely, and found that we had several tastes in 
common. 

The train rattled on ; the cooler breeze of the 
evening blew refreshingly in our faces through the 
open windows of the carriage. 

The engine gave the customary shriek of warn- 
ing, and we closed them simultaneously as we 
dashed into a tunnel. 

After a few minutes of darkness we emerged 
into the light. Thinking we were through, I let 
down the window by which I was sitting. As I 
did so, I looked out and noticed that we were 
rounding a curve, and that ahead of us was the 
mouth of the second part of the tunnel, in the 
blackness of which, on the same line of metals as 


Red Lights Ahead 75 

we were on, glowed, like monstrous eyes of fire, 
the red rear-lights of another train. 

‘‘ There’s a train ahead of us ! ” I cried, and 
we’re smashing into it ! ” 


76 


Friend or Fortune 


CHAPTER X. 

WHAT WAS THE DEAD MAN’S NEWS? 

T hree piercing shrieks in quick succession 
from the engine of the express — a vibration, 
as the brakes were applied, that shook us from 
our seats — a shout of wild alarm, and then — the 
smash ! 

I was dashed against the woodwork of the 
opposite side of the carriage with such violence 
as to stun me. When I recovered consciousness, 
the carriage was still upright, but motionless. A 
babel of cries and groans and screams filled my 
ears. I groped about with my hands in the dark- 
ness, and they touched the body of rny compan- 
ion, stretched at full length along the bottom of 
the compartment. He, too, had been stunned, 
and was still partially unconscious, for he mur- 
mured feebly as I lifted his head — 

“ What’s up ? Is my collah on stwaight ? ” 

I stumbled to the door and flung it open ; then 
turned round again and dragged him to his feet. 
He regained his wits now quickly, and followed 
me as I leaped from the carriage. 

The train we had overtaken and run into was a 


What was the Dead Man’s News 77 

goods train. Though the operation of the brakes 
had reduced the violence of the concussion, its 
effects had been bad enough. The wreck of the 
guard’s van and several of the loaded trucks, and 
the overturned engine and front part of the ex- 
press lay across the down line ; and a portion of 
the hideous heap was on fire. 

The tunnel swarmed with alighted passengers. 
Some ran hither and thither as though distracted ; 
others were helping the women and the wounded 
from the carriages. A few were bearing silent 
and motionless burdens towards the light. A 
wild cry, a cry of horror, was raised by one voice, 
to be taken up by a score of voices : “ The down 
express ! The down express is due ! ” Waving 
a lantern in each hand, and accompanied by a 
number of shouting men, a guard — with difficulty 
they got past the scene of the accident — rushed 
forward to stop the train that might even then 
be entering the tunnel. Too late ! Already it 
had entered — already its panting breath was 
heard. 

A mass of terror-stricken men and women 
surged towards the nearer mouth of the tunnel, 
and Pullet and I were borne on with the wave. 
We had scarcely reached the open air before a 
terrible and never-to-be-forgotten sound told that 
the second accident had happened. 

Help arrived, and some of us helped the helpers. 


Friend or Fortune 


78 

From beneath one of the carriages of the down 
train Pooley and I — Pooley behaved like a hero 
all through — extricated a poor fellow who had 
not, even we could see, long to live. 

We dragged out some cushions, and made an 
easy bed of them for him to lie upon. He looked 
at us very gratefully, and tried to speak. 

Though his face twitched and was pale, and 
though his body trembled convulsively, his mus- 
cular limbs and the set of his square broad 
shoulders showed how very strong he must have 
been — till such a little time ago. 

Not far off I noticed a doctor kneeling beside 
another wounded man. As he rose to his feet — 
lint in one hand and a cruel-looking surgical 
instrument in the other — I ran to him. 

Can you come this way, sir ? ” I asked. “ You 
are wanted badly ; ” and I pointed to where 
Pooley was still bending over the cushions. 

^‘Aye, my lad,” replied the doctor. Why, 
what’s this ? ” he added, touching my hatless 
head ; “ you’re hurt yourself.” 

“Am I, sir?” I said in surprise. Raising my 
hand, I found my hair thick with clotted blood. 
But my hurt couldn’t be anything serious, or I 
should have known of it before, so I hurried the 
doctor on with me. 

When we reached the spot to which I led him, 
I noticed that Pooley was also hurt. He had a 
nasty mark over the temple. I mu.st have seen 


What was the Dead Man’s News 79 

it before, but somehow, in the excitement, it had 
made no impression on my mind. 

“Will you examine this poor fellow, doctor?” 

The doctor held his lantern to the man’s 
face, touched his body lightly, and shook his 
head. 

“ No,” he said pitifully ; “ I must attend to 
those who are not beyond my help. You young 
gentlemen will be worse to-morrow morning,” he 
remarked as he passed on, “ and you’d better let 
me see you. I am Dr. Burton — anybody about 
here will tell you where to send for me.” 

“Towers,” said Pullet, in a rather husky voice, 
“ I think he’s going. Can you get a light ? ” 

Again I hurried away, returning in a few 
minutes with a lantern. I held it close over the 
poor fellow’s head. As I knelt beside him to 
move it into an easier position, the light fell upon 
my own head also. Pooley broke into an ex- 
clamation and an anxious inquiry as he saw the 
state it was in. 

He used both my names in doing so ; he called 
me “ Ralph ” once as well as “ Towers.” 

The injured man fixed his glazing eyes upon 
me. I saw his gray lips moving. He was trying 
to speak. 

“ Towers ! ” he gasped, with a palpably painful 
effort, but quite intelligibly. “ Ralph Towers ? 
And ” — turning his failing gaze to the other white 
face bending over him — “ are — you — the other 


8o 


Friend or Fortune 


one ? Because — if you are the two — I’ve — brought 
you — news — of ” 

His lips ceased to move. Not another word 
passed them. For the first time in my life I was 
looking into the face of a dead man 1 


The Land of Gold 


8i 


CHAPTER XL 

THE LAND OF GOLD. 

D r. burton was right. 

Pooley de Vere Pullet — eccentric name of 
an eccentric fellow — and myself were worse in the 
morning. With others of the slightly wounded, 
we had been driven overnight to a neighboring 
farm-house, where the sturdy master, the buxom 
mistress, and their rosy-cheeked daughters, had 
done for us all that kind hearts and willing hands 
could do. Pooley and I had been put to bed in 
a large, low, old-fashioned room, the sheets and 
pillows of which were white as snow and sweet as 
the breath of the honeysuckles that shadowed 
the window panes. The twittering of birds woke 
us with the early sunshine from the night’s dis- 
turbed and unrestful sleep ; and we hailed each 
other across the room and compared notes. 

Our heads ached ; our bodies felt stiff all over, 
as though they had recently been starched and 
ironed with every care. 

Presently Mr. Durnstable, the farmer, came 
in to us, full of anxiety to know how we were 
6 


82 


Friend or Fortune 


getting on. He was followed by his wife, and 
his wife was followed by a red maid-servant in 
a white dress, who brought a huge tray with a 
breakfast on it sufficient for eight healthy farm 
laborers. 

We ate and drank, and got up and dressed, and j 
began to feel better. I 

About eleven o’clock Dr. Burton called, and | 
re-dressed our heads, which had been provisionally i 
patched up the night before. He said that we | 
should be all right again in a few days ; and again I 
he was right, for we were. 

Pooley’s bag and my box had been brought up 
to the house, and we were very comfortable and 
well provided for ; but it was, of course, out of 
the question to accept the hospitality of good 
Mr. and Mrs. Durnstable any longer, now that we 
had quite recovered. In as delicate and round- 
about way as I could think of I had approached 
the subject of remunerating them (as far as might 
be possible out of my slender stock), but they 
wouldn't hear of it. 

“ So, Pooley,” I said, “ we must express our 
thanks as well as we can, and continue our broken 
journey.” 

‘‘ We must stay over at least another day,” was , 
Pooley’s reply. 

^‘Why?” I asked. 

** Because I’ve posted my circular for August to 
all the names on my list, asking for a wemittance. 


The Land of Gold 83 

and I’ve given Gable Farm as the place where the 
answers are to be sent.” 

“ But what’s the use of all your letters? You 
say that you never get replies — or, at least, never 
get the remittance you ask for.” 

That’s twue enough,” admitted the letter- 
writer moodily. But I’ve got so used to asking 
for it that I shouldn’t feel easy if I didn’t get off 
my monthly letter. I should feel as though I’d 
neglected a sacwed duty — though nothing ever 
comes of it. But that’s not my fault. I give all 
my connections the opportunity. If they don’t 
avail themselves of it — and they never do — that’s 
their fault.” 

“ And your misfortune.” 

“ Twue. My circular for August was a most 
touching thing — a composition I am pwroud of. 
It was short — shorter than I’ve ever made it 
before — but calculated to hawwow the hardest 
heart. In each copy I enclosed a cutting from a 
local newspaper giving an account of the accident 
that led us here. Then I went on to say — 

* 1 am hoverwing between life and death ! ’ ” 

I say. Pullet — come, come : wasn’t that draw- 
ing the long-bow? What’s the matter with 
you ? 

We are all hoverwing between life and death. 
Towers,” rejoined Pullet piously. “ My state- 
ment was made as a sort of bwoad pwinciple — as 
a sort of generwal thing. I am hoverwing be- 


Friend or Fortune 


84 

ween life and death. If people choose to give a 
sort of special and particular application to the 
statement, and connect it with the accident on the 
line, that’s their look-out, not mine.” 

I felt that it was not a point in casuistry that 
could be very easily upset, but I had no wish to 
argue it. 

“To how many people have you posted this 
precious appeal ? ” I asked. 

“ Nine,” he answered — “ my full list of connec- 
tions and distant welatives.” 

“ How many replies do you expect ? ” 

“ Two or thwee.” 

“ How many remittances ? ” 

“ None, Walph. I may have a bucket or two 
of sympathy, but a wemittance I have long ceased 
to hope for. For an hour or two after posting 
yesterday such an extwa-special application to 
the whole nine I confess that my hopes plucked 
up again a bit. But a little calm thought was 
sufficient to cwush ’em all down once more.” 

Presently our conversation turned, as all our 
conversations had done during the last few days, 
to the subject of the man who died in the tunnel 
with such strange words upon his lips. 

Who was the man, whence did he come, whither 
was he going? 

How was it that my name was familiar to him? 

What did he mean by asking Pooley, “ Are you 
the other one? ” 


The Land of Gold 85 

From whom, or of whom, was he bringing the 
“ news ” he never told ? 

His body had been taken to an inn close to the 
nearest station, about a mile from the scene of 
the smash-up, and a mile and a half from Gable 
Farm. We knew that nothing had been found 
upon him to show who or what he was, and that 
up to yesterday no one had come to identify him. 

That afternoon we walked again to the station 
to repeat our inquiries. They were answered as 
they had been before — no inquiries had been re- 
ceived respecting the unknown, no one had come 
to claim him. Nameless and unsought for, he had 
that day been committed to the grave. 

“ We must give it up,” said Pooley as we walked 
back. We shall never find out what he meant. 
And it’s no use to form any opinions about it all. 
When a chap’s got no facts to form an opinion 
on,** he remarked sagely, “ it’s better for a chappie 
not to form an opinion.” 

That evening Mr. Durnstable got upon his 
favorite topic — Australia. He had a son out 
there, and was never tired of talking about it and 
him. 

“ It’s all over with farming in England,” he 
declared ; “ Australia’s the only place. Look at 
my son. He began by shepherding five years 
ago, and now he owns thousands of acres, with 
thousands of sheep. It would take you days to 
walk round his run. He’s coining money.” 


86 


Friend or Fortune 


He fetched a number of his son’s carefully pre- 
served letters, and read us long extracts from 
them descriptive of the writer’s wild, free life. 

These descriptions seemed to fascinate Pooley. 
The farmer was delighted with his eager interest, 
and entered with gusto into the points raised by 
the questions with which Pooley plied him. 

“ Australia’s the place ! ” he maintained again 
and again. There’s gold still to be dug out of 
the earth and gold to be made on the earth. It’s 
the Land of Gold! ” 

I’ve been dweaming of Austwalia all night,” 
announced my chamber-mate next morning, as 
soon as he ascertained that I also was awake — 
and of sheep, and black fellows, and kanga- 
woos.” 

When we descended to the breakfast-room, I 
saw that a letter lay beside my plate ; and five 
letters lay beside Pooley’s plate. 

He sat down and opened the crested envelope 
of the first that came to his hand. 

“From the Honorwable Tabbie,” he murmured 
to me across the table. 

As he read its contents he sprang to his feet 
with a strange, loud exclamation of astonish- 
ment. 

“ What is it ? ” I cried, affrightedly. 

“ What is it ? ” repeated Farmer Durnstable — 
suspending the passage on the point of his fork 
of a piece of fat bacon to his mouth. 


The Land of Gold 


87 

Pooley’s eyes seemed starting from their sockets 
as he sank back into his seat, and panted in tones 
of bewildered amazement — 

I’ve got a Wemittance ! ” 

He ripped open a second letter, and gasped — 

‘‘ I’ve got another wemittance ! ” 

His hands shook with excitement as he un- 
folded a third letter. Something fell from it on 
to the snowy table-cloth. 

A third remittance ! 

He selected a fourth letter. 

“ This is from my wemote cousin. Sir Lucas de 
Vere,” he said. “ I wonder if there’s more in 
this also than meets the optic — from outside.” 

There was — for yet another cheque met his 
enraptured vision as he unfolded the letter. 

He took up his fifth and last communication. 
Something fluttered from it down on to the 
carpet. 

He grew pale. 

If that’s another cheque, Walph, I shall faint.” 

He picked it up. I was hoping to see him 
faint, but he didn’t. It was a tract. 

As soon as he and I were alone he summed 
up the present results of his “ August circular ” 
thus — 

“ Nine letters posted — answers to hand, five — 
one twact and four wemittances.” 

The hospitable Durnstables persuaded us — 
without much difficulty — to postpone our depart- 


88 


Friend or Fortune 


ure till the morrow, the morning post of which 
brought Pooley four more replies. Two con- 
tained sympathy, minus money ; one contained a 
postal order, and one another cheque. 

Pooley didn’t faint — his capacity of astonish- 
ment had been exhausted already. 

Nine letters and nine answers,” he enumer- 
ated in a business-like tone ; “ six wemittances 
and one twact. Walph, we’ve got close on a 
hundred pounds in hand.” 

I didn’t say anything, but his use of one word 
touched me. He said “we,” not “ I.” 

“ It was that ‘ hoverwing between life and death * 
line, combined with the newspaper cutting, that | 
fetched ’em,” he went on. “ We’ve got all this [ 
money by hoverwing.” 

My own letter had been from Joe Runciman, 
in reply to one I had written to his father. 

Nothing more had been seen, nothing had been j 
heard. For neither of us was there “any news.” j 

Our traps were packed, the dog-cart drove round 
to the door. “ Good-byes ” were exchanged, and | 
off we drove to the station. ' 

Before we left, Pooley begged for all the Aus- i 
tralian newspapers in the house, and they were | 
given to him. He flattened them down and put j 
them between the- straps of his Gladstone bag, | 
and read them on the journey to London. 

That evening we reached his lodgings in Clap- | 
ton safe and sound. 


The Land of Gold 89 

Anxious to lose no time in looking about for a 
situation, I asked Pooley, when we had settled 
down after a good supper, what immediate steps 
he would advise. I urged that we had better 
both of us start looking for something to do the 
first thing in the morning. 

‘‘ ‘ Situations ! ’ sniffed Pooley disdainfully. 
“ What’s the good of ‘ situations ’ in this played- 
out old country ? They only get lost. 

No, my boy. /’// tell you what we’ll do. I’ve 
got an impulse. We’ll be off to the Land of 
Gold. We’ll emigrate.” 

“ Emigrate ! ” I exclaimed. 

Yes. Walph Towers, we’ll buy some cwooks, 
and go and tend sheep in Austwalia ! ” 


90 


Friend or Fortune 


CHAPTER XII. 

GOOD-BYE, OLD ENGLAND. 

I N less than half an hour the impulsive Pooley 
had infected me with his enthusiasm ; I was 
as eager that we should try our luck in the coun- 
try of the kangaroos as he was. 

Amongst my first thoughts when he broached 
his tremendous scheme that we should emigrate 
to Australia and devote ourselves to the pastoral 
pursuit of shepherding, had been one of sincere 
and involuntary pity for any sheep that might be 
so unfortunate as to come under the sway of our 
crooks ; but this feeling soon melted away before 
the force of more selfish considerations. I still 
felt sorry for the sheep, but recognized that they 
were inferior creatures, and must not stand in the 
way of our advancement. 

We threw ourselves into the preparations for 
our intended voyage with the greatest ardor. 
Soon after breakfast the next morning we went 
up to the City together to inquire about a ship. 
When Pooley joined me in the sitting-room ready 
dressed for the expedition, I scarcely knew him. 


Good-bye, Old England 


91 


He had discarded his beaver for a soft brown 
slouch hat ; his throat was no longer garroted in 
four inches of starched linen — he wore instead a 
loose turned-down collar with a carelessly knotted 
! tie. An older and easily fitting suit of gray tweed 
had superseded his precipitate cutaway and im- 
maculate white waistcoat and light trousers. 

It was obvious that, having determined to be a 
teepherd, he was already, as far as was practi- 
cable, dressing for the part. By and by I noticed 
that in walk and talk he was affecting a sort of 
I free-and-easy colonialism of deportment and dic- 
I tion. 

Poor old Pooley ! He was a strange mixture, 
e visited about half a dozen shipping offices — 
Pooley seemed to know exactly where to go. 
Amongst the vessels of which he obtained partic- 
ulars was the Clara Dickins^ a large emigrant 
I sailing-ship lying in the East India Docks. Her 
i^ates were temptingly low, and she was advertised 
I to sail in a week for Melbourne and Sydney. 

1 “ Of course, we should be longer getting out in 

^er,” said Pooley, than we should be on a 
steamer, but, on the other hand, her fares being 
so much less, we should have more money in hand 
twhen we landed.” 

This remark prompted another remonstrance 
from me on the score of the unfairness of our 
^partnership, our respective means being so un- 
equal. I had raised this point on the previous 


\^l 


92 


Friend or Fortune 


evening; but now, as then, the capitalist Poolel 
waived aside my scruples with the air of a princ|ut 
and we posted down to the docks to overhaul th|B{ 
Clara Dickms. ! |it 


She was a fine-looking, well-found ship, wit 




comfortable accommodation for hundreds of pa;j|^ 
sengers. 

Walph,” said my “partner,"’ as we left thj'^f 
docks, “ I feel an impulse coming on to book ouji,g 
berths.” 

“ On the Clara Dickins ? ” 

“Yes, on the ClawaC 

“ Better keep the impulse in hand till to-mo] 
row,” I advised ; “ we can talk everything ove 
quietly to-night.” 

The result of a long after-tea confabulation wa 
a decision to act on Pooley’s impulse. W 
visited the agents again next day, and paid ou 
passage-money to Melbourne. 

Then we set about buying our outfits, in select! 
ing the numerous articles comprising whicl 
Pooley acted with a judgment and discretion tha 
surprised me. His impulses to run down tluj 
prices were successful in almost every case, bu 1 
when the job was finished and he counted th( 
balance left from his remittances he drew a lon| 
face — which shortened, however, as the happ) 
impulse seized him to write another “circulai ^ 
letter” to his sorely tried and long-sufferin||| 
friends. Feeling implicated, I demurred to thii 


Good-bye, Old England 93 

impulse ” ; but he was not to be deterred. He 
W down and drafted out a clever letter, headed 
' ^ Emigration ” (underlined), and commencing 
with the statement that “ on the eve of his depart- 
|jre for the Antipodes ” he was in need of assist- 
^ince for the last (though he regretfully admitted 
not the first last !) time. He made nine fair copies 
'bf his draft, and posted them all together to the 
'/Msual nine of his relatives and connections. 

“ Some of ’em will be so gwateful that I’m going 
to the other end of the world,” he assured me, 
i:‘ that they’ll stump up a thanksgiving.” 

? Sure enough, he received several more cheques 
]on the day before we sailed, and hastened to turn 
them into money. He soothed my feelings by 
“the easy promise that we would repay these sums 
fe)ut of the first fortune we made. He apparently 
jlexpected to make a large number. To his mind 
the connection between sheep and shekels was a 
'close one. 

^ We went on board over-night. About half an 
^hour before the ship cleared out into the stream 
jhext morning, we observed from the deck a com- 
fmotion amongst the men at work along the wharf 
off which we lay. The stir was evidently caused 
by the spectacle of an old lady, richly though 
primly dressed, and followed by two pompous and 
disgusted-looking footmen in livery, daintily pick- 
ing her way through the bales and luggage that 
encumbered the quayside. 


94 


Friend or Fortune 


''Goodness gwacious!” gasped Pooley ; "il|j 
the Honorwable Tabbie ! She’s come to see i 

... I 

As he clambered down the ship’s side to pa, 
over the intervening barges on to the wharf \i 
receive his visitor, a roar of laughter from tls 
delighted dockers followed a sad mishap to oit 
of her fat and supercilious attendants, who, rniilj 
ing his footing near the edge (perhaps throud^ 
holding his nose too high in the air), dropp<'j 
with a splash and a howl into the water, froi| 
which he was rescued with difficulty, and se 
away by his mistress to change his clothes. i 

After conversing with his aunt for sever I 
minutes, Pooley moved a little way from her, aijj 
called to me to come ashore. I was presented ; 
the old lady, who talked very kindly to both ' 
us, and gave us a lot of good advice. Pooley t' 
haved very respectfully and nicely to her, and ! 
couldn’t help thinking, when I saw how genuine ? 
affected he was by the kindness of her speech at| 
manner, that whatever his faults might have bet ij 
in the past, they must have been faults of tljf 
head rather than of the heart. A good heart is 
much more quickly moved than a bad one. I j 
even hesitated, in a conscience-stricken sort f 
way, to accept something that she took from h \ 
beautiful sealskin purse and slipped into his hai^l 
— though the little roll of banknotes did not fiif 
its way back again, 


Good-bye, Old England 95 

Amidst all the bustle and excitement, the dear 
old lady remained on the wharf till the ship began 
to move, the grim form of her remaining footman 
towering behind her. She waved her lace-em- 
broidered silk handkerchief in farewell again and 
again : and once I saw her put it to her eyes. 

Before the autumn moon had risen the Clara 
Dickins had made the Channel : the tug had cast 
off, and the pilot gone ashore. Our long voyage 
had fairly commenced. 

Are the days of adventure over in these latter 
years of the nineteenth century ? 

Pooley and I little knew how very soon we 
should be qualified to answer the question, from 
personal experience, with a particularly emphatic 
“ No ! 


96 


Friend or Fortune 


CHAPTER XIIL 

A MYSTERIOUS PASSENGER. 

F avored by magnificent weather, the good 
ship Clara Dickins scudded down the Eng- 
lish Channel. 

Beechy Bay was not in sight when we passed 
it, but my eyes were turned shoreward, never- 
theless. Pooley joined me as I looked in the 
direction where lay my old home.” Feeling the 
clap of his hand upon my shoulder, / acted on an 
impulse. I had experienced before the impulse 
to take him fully into my confidence — now I acted 
upon it. He knew so much already that it didn’t 
take me long to tell him the rest. But he had 
been so open and candid with me that I felt all 
the better for making a clean breast of the exact 
circumstances under which I had left Consett’s. 

You bolted from seven thousand a year,” said 
my confidant thoughtfully, “ because of a lying 
accusation against you. It’s worse than anything 
else that you bolted under a cloud. I know a lot 
about mistakes, Walph, because I’ve made ’em all 
my life — and you were guilty of a whopper : hot 


97 


A Mysterious Passenger 

so much in what you did in giving first place to 
a fwiend and second place to a fortune as in the 
way you did it.” 

It was quite true — I had ‘‘bolted under a 
cloud,” but Pooley's way of putting it placed my 
conduct in a new light — and one in which I didn’t 
feel at all easy. 

We emerged from the Bay of Biscay after a 
rather bad time of it for everybody on board ex- 
cept the seasoned hands. The sailors said we had 
had a fine passage through the dreaded Bay. 
They ought to have known, but they didn’t know, 
or they wouldn’t have made such a remark. 

With a favoring gale astern we bowled along off 
the West Coast of Africa till we passed from the 
North into the South Atlantic. 

For a day or two the breeze continued, and then 
there fell a calm, the tedium of which was broken 
on the third morning by an exciting incident. 

The man on the look-out hailed the deck with 
a stentorian shout of — 

“ Boat on the starb’d bow, sir ! ” 

To us non-mariners on deck the object he had 
made out looked just a speck in the distance, bob- 
bing up and down with the swell of the ocean ; 
but glasses held to keener eyes speedily magnified 
the speck into an open boat containing a single 
occupant, seated passively in the stern sheets. 

One of the ship’s boats was lowered, and pulled 
on for the drifting little craft, which was brought 
7 


Friend or Fortune 


98 

alongside. Such a strange old gentleman climbed 
on board from it. After a few words the captain 
— who looked very much puzzled — hurried him 
into his cabin, where they were closeted for a 
long while before the new passenger was seen 
again on deck. 

In the mean time the sailors who had brought 
him on board answered the questions of a group 
of excited inquirers. 

They spoke very mysteriously — almost super- 
stitiously— of the old gentleman they had rescued. 
They couldn’t make anything of him, they said — 
but they touched their foreheads significantly, as 
though to imply that he had lost his wits. 

Presently the word was passed for Pooley and 
myself — the captain wanted to see us ! 

In silent surprise we followed the messenger to 
Captain Arkwright’s cabin, whither the first mate 
and the steward had been summoned before us, 
for they left as we entered. i 

He was seated opposite the strange stranger,” | 
at whom we could not refrain from gazing. 

He was a fine-looking old fellow, whose age | 
might be a little nearer sixty than seventy — with 
white hair and shaggy gray eyebrows, matching 
a thick and fierce moustache, than which his beard ' 
was so much whiter as to show that probably his 
chin had long been shaven while his upper lip had 
not. There was something very strange about ^ 
his placid face — something wanting. Its placidity , 


99 


A Mysterious Passenger 

seemed unnatural. I can think of only one way 
to explain what I mean. It is a phenomenon 
often noticed that after death the face loses 
certain marks and lines that have characterized it 
in recent life — its appearance reverts to what it 
must have been in previous years, before those 
marks and lines were there at all, and thus 
the face itself is wanting in its more familiar 
aspect. 

And this living face at which we looked, though 
we had never seen it before, conveyed somehow a 
subtle sense that something was wanting — that 
something had gone which should have been 
in company with the shaggy brows and keen 
gray eyes, the firm lips, and the strong, square 
chin. 

With a few words of apology to his guest, as I 
suppose I must call him — about whom lingered 
a suggestion of importance that commanded re- 
spect — Captain Arkwright (who was, by-the-bye, 
as fine a fellow as ever trod a deck) drew us aside. 

^‘You know how this poor old fellow came 
aboard ? ” he asked us. 

“Yes, captain,” I answered. “ We saw it all.” 

“ Well, who he is or what he is — where he came 
from and where he was going, or thought he was 
going — what on earth he was doing in an open 
boat on the high seas — is all a mystery that he 
can’t throw any reasonable light on himself, for 
he says that he doesn’t even know — but ”... 


100 


Friend or Fortune 


here a new idea seemed to strike him . . . 
“just you try it on. One of you go up to him 
and ask him suddenly who he is.” 

I slipped across to the table. 

“ I beg your pardon, sir — would you mind 
telling a fellow-passenger who you are ? ” 

“ I am called the padre ; but I do not know 
who I am,” was the extraordinary reply, spoken 
in a voice the gentleness of which seemed to con- 
vey again that sense of incongruity, for more 
strident tones should have rung from such a chest 
and throat. 

“ His reason has gone, you see,” resumed 
Captain Arkwright, speaking lower than ever. 
“ That’s just what he said to me. If he doesn’t 
know his own name, it’s no use to ask him where 
he came from or anything else. I’ve been asking 
him for half an hour who he is, and he’s only 
answered, ‘ I am called the padre — I don’t know 
who I am.’ Whether I shall put in to land him 
somewhere or carry him on I shall have to decide, 
but in the mean time, of course, he must be looked 
after. Now, I understand there’s a spare berth 
in your cabin ? ” 

“ Yes, sir.” 

Pooley and I, who were, I believe, rated as 
second-class passengers, occupied a small cabin in 
the fore part of the vessel, but separated from the 
steerage, and we tumbled to what was coming. 

“ Well, do you mind having the poor old gentle- 


lOI 


A Mysterious Passenger 

man with you for a time ? Some of the emigrants, 
you know, are a rough lot, and I should like him 
to be free from the annoyances they might sub- 
ject him to. Keep your eyes on him, of course ; 
watch him in a quiet way, though he seems as 
harmless as a child. You’re not afraid ? ” 

Certainly not,” we both assured him, and fell 
in with his suggestion readily enough. 

So the sad-faced, gentle-voiced ** padre ” fell 
into our charge, so to speak. He was no sort of 
trouble to us — on the contrary, he interested us 
greatly, and we grew to like him exceedingly. 
In some respects he was more like a child than a 
lunatic — strikingly so. He took a rational and 
even a lively interest in all that went on around 
him, particularly after a day or two. But every 
attempt to remind him of the past, to draw from 
him some statement as to his identity, was met 
with the old answer — 

“ I am called the padre — I don’t know who I 
am. I cannot remember — I cannot remember.” 

So painful a look used to cross his face as he 
reiterated this strange statement that we soon 
ceased to question him. 

The ship’s doctor — a very young and inex- 
perienced one — could make nothing of the case. 
It clearly baffled him. All he could do was to 
say some long words and try to look wise — not 
very successfully. 

The calm lasted a week. 


102 


Friend or Fortune 


I shall never forget the day before the wind 
came. It revealed Mr. Pooley de Vere Pullet 
in a new and unsuspected character — that of a 
pugilist. 

Almost all the emigrants, so far as they met the 
padre at all, treated him kindly and respectfully. 
There was a notable exception in the person of 
one Tommy Jacobs, as he was called — the bully 
of the steerage. If he could have had his way, 
the old gentleman would have been made the 
sport of everybody. During the idle hours of 
the calm he never lost an opportunity of trying 
to raise a laugh at the padre’s expense — for it had 
been impossible to prevent the fact leaking out 
that “ something was wrong ” with the latter ; 
the sailors who rescued him had said as much. 
Jacobs professed to be in mortal fear that he 
would set the ship on fire, or scuttle her. His 
favorite dodge, when he saw him approaching, 
was to fly away as though in the last extremity of 
fear. 

Pooley had affected not to notice these demon- 
strations, but on the afternoon I am speaking of 
he adopted very different tactics. 

Meeting the three of us — the padre in the 
middle — walking the fore-deck, Jacobs scuttled 
away as usual, bellowing “ He’s coming — look 
out, look out ! ” 

This time our poor old friend seemed to feel 
that he was being mocked, for his face flushed 


A Mysterious Passenger 103 

angrily, and he made as though he would follow 
the fellow. But Pooley restrained him, and got 
him quietly below. 

“You may as well come and see fair play, 
Walph,’’ he said coolly — and I followed him 
towards the steerage, wondering what he was 
up to. 

We found Tommy Jacobs in the midst of 
some half a dozen of the worst characters on 
board. 

“ Will you come and apologize to the gentle- 
man whom you were wude to just now?” Pooley 
asked him politely. 

A roar of laughter was at first the only answer 
he received, but he quietly repeated his ques- 
tion — only to be told to go and stick his head in 
a bucket. 

“ If you won’t apologize, I shall thwash you ! ” 

I could scarcely believe my ears ; but that the 
challenger meant business was certain, for he im- 
mediately added, “ Step this way, please.” 

With another guffaw, in which he was joined 
by his delighted companions, who scented some 
rare sport in the coming combat (incredible as 
such a combat seemed), Jacobs and they followed 
to the entrance of the forecastle, in which were 
almost all the crew not on duty. Pooley, point- 
ing a careless finger to Jacobs behind him, ad- 
dressed them in his suavest manner. 

“ May we intwude upon you to have a fight ? ” 


104 


Friend or Fortune 


The enthusiasm was indescribable ; the propo- 
sal to turn the forecastle into a cock-pit exactly 
suited the taste of its occupants. They offered 
an uproarious welcome, and cleared a space in a 
twinkling. 

Pooley, who had stripped to his shirt-sleeves 
before Jacobs had got his coat off, looked at his 
doubled left fist confidently. 

“ This is more than gets into a fellow’s optic 
every day,” he remarked pleasantly. 

It was soon evident enough that, dandy as he 
was in many ways, he had learnt to box some- 
where. Through the first three rounds he dodged 
so cleverly that he escaped with very little dam- 
age. During the two other rounds, having pretty 
well pumped his man, he gave up dodging and 
hit. He hit with beautiful judgment and be- 
wildering rapidity. 

At the end of the fifth round Jacobs announced 
that he didn’t want any more. Astonished as we 
all were at the result of the encounter, I don’t 
think anybody was so astonished as the bully 
himself. 

“ Will you come and apologize to the gentle- 
man you were wude to ? ” again asked the victor, 
as though nothing had happened since he asked 
the same question before. 

“Yes, sir,” said Tommy Jacobs; but the vin- 
dictive scowl upon his face made me shudder. 

As we stepped out on to the deck a shouted order 


A Mysterious Passenger 105 

reached our ears from the officer of the watch for 
hands to lay aloft to make sail. 

A cloud was spreading in the distant sky — a far- 
off ripple on the water told its own story. The 
wind was coming. 


io6 


Friend or Fortune 


CHAPTER XIV. 

A WHITE NIGHT. 

A gain with bellying sails the Clara Dickins 
. pursued her course, a few hours bringing 
us within sight of Ascension Island. The padre 
looked intently towards the pile of barren rocks, 
and exclaimed — 

“ I think that is where I came from — I think 
so.” 

We tried to follow up this faint clue by putting 
a number of “ leading questions ” to him, but 
nothing came of the attempt. 

Nearing St. Helena, we heard the captain dis- 
cussing with the mate as to whether to put in for 
the purpose of landing him there. The mate 
seemed to favor the idea ; but the wind was 
holding good, and Captain Arkwright, ambitious 
of making a record run, longed to retrieve the 
lost days of the calm, and decided to keep his 
vessel on her course. 

The news of the fight between Pooley and 
Tommy Jacobs spread fore and aft, and the former 
was treated with marked respect. There had 


107 


A White Night 

previously been rather a tendency to laugh at 
him. The forecastle hands who had actually wit- 
nessed the combat regarded him with specially 
favorable eyes, and approached him on the sub- 
ject of having a fight every night, for the general 
good and pleasure. 

“ Things is very dull on board, sir,” said their 
spokesman, “ and a dozen nice rounds as might 
be looked for reg’lar would cheer us all up. 
We’ve spoke about it amongst ourselves and 
amongst the passengers, and there’s seventeen fine 
big chaps as is willing to take you on, sir, for to 
make a start. They’d expect a small considera- 
tion, but mostly in the shape o’ baccy, sir.” 

Do you take me for a pwize-fighter ? ” in- 
quired Pooley. 

“ Well, no, sir, not exactly that, though if you 
should give your thoughts to the perfession you’d 
soar’igh, sir — ’igh. You can put ’em up, and no 
mistake. A angel might have envied you the 
way you got that left-’andeder on Tommy Jacobs’ 
heye. And anything finer than how you shifted 
his nose three points towards his port earhole I 
ain’t seen for years. I shouldn’t never have 
thought it of you, sir, for to look at you. I’m 
downright proifd to know yer, sir.” 

Pooley expressed his gratification at receiving 
such encomiums, which he said he feared he had 
done little to deserve. He was glad to have 
afforded the gentlemen of the forecastle any 


io8 


Friend or Fortune 


pleasure by his little display of the noble art, but 
regretted that he must decline the engagements 
into which he was pressed to enter. He begged 
that his apologies might be tendered to the seven- 
teen “ fine big chaps ” who had been good enough 
to offer to face him. 

His satire was all thrown away, for the sailor 
took him quite seriously. 

I’m very sorry, sir — very sorry indeed. It’ll 
be a great blow to my mates. P’raps ” — with a 
doubtful look at me — ‘‘ p’raps your friend would 
oblige ? There’s a apprentice on board a-doing 
of his second voyage as would be just about up 
to his weight. They ought to make a pretty 
little match of it.” 

I increased his disappointment by declining 
the suggested meeting, and he walked off dis- 
consolate. 

Having long ago found our sea legs, Pooley 
and I were only anxious for the termination of 
the voyage in order that we might get seriously 
to work. Over and over again we discussed our 
plans, but however much we varied certain de- 
tails of them, we always agreed that, once landed, 
we would lose no time. 

For a while we continued to sail over sparkling 
seas under sunlit skies. The nights were scarcely 
less beautiful than the days. 

Then came a change — a sudden change. 

We went on deck one morning to find both sea 


A White Night 109 

and sky invisible, for a dense white fog filled all 
the space between. 

But for the swish of the waters, we seemed to 
be riding through clouds of fog. There was 
something weird and ghostly in the feeling. 

Night brought little difference — for the night 
was white with fog. When the lamps were lit 
and swung up, the raking masts looked like thin 
black shadows falling athwart the all-pervading 
whiteness. 

I was on deck. So, I believe, was Pooley, but 
I could not see him. 

Suddenly, only slightly muffled by the fog, the 
piercing scream of a syren whistle rent the air. 
Its echoes seemed so to circle round and round 
about the ship that I was perplexed to locate the 
whereabouts of the steamer that must thus have 
warned us of her proximity. 

I heard some shouted orders, and recognized 
the voice of Captain Arkwright. The voice 
seemed a long way off, but it only came from the 
hidden quarter-deck. 

His last words were drowned in the dismal 
hooting of a fog-horn. 

The steamer was moving, for the fog-horn was 
unmistakably sounded nearer to us than the syren. 

Again a quickly given order from the quarter- 
deck — and the helm of the Clara Dickins, was 
put over, some of her sails shifted, and she swung 
her huge bows to port. 


no 


Friend or Fortune 


A collision was only just avoided. It can 
scarcely be said to have been avoided at all, for 
— as though it had risen from the sea or dropped 
from the invisible sky — an indistinct black mass 
was alongside of us — touching us. 

As it scraped and bumped along the length of 
the Clara DickinSj I stood just where the light of 
a lantern fell full upon me. 

Loud cries rose from both ship and steamer, 
and a rush was made to the colliding side of each. 

I was thrown to my feet by a crash of greater 
violence than we had yet experienced. 

Rising, I seized hold of the shrouds to steady 
myself, still in the rays of the light above my 
head. 

Within arm’s length of me, clinging to the 
shrouds of the steamer, and in the midst of a 
group of men holding lanterns in their uplifted 
hands, the glow streaming clearly on his face, 
stood — Harry Saxon. 


An Old Chum on and a New Chum off iii 


CHAPTER XV. 


AN OLD CHUM ON AND A NEW CHUM OFF. 



HERE was I ? What had happened ? 


V V I felt the touch, the grasp, the grip of 
his strong right hand again ; the voice that I 
had thought forever still was ringing in my ears 
again ! Where was I ? 

Had I been stunned by my fall when the 
steamer lurched against our broadside, that I did 
not know ? What had happened ? 

Surely I must be dazed still — that I did not 
know. Had I leaped to Harry from the sailing- 
ship, or had Harry leaped to me from the steamer ? 

Gradually my mind cleared. 

Harry Saxon and I were standing on the deck 
of the Clara Dickins : the two vessels had cleared 
each other — the steamer had glided on into the 
white night, and was lost to sight. 

Harry had leaped from her moving bulwarks 
on to the deck of the Clara Dickins ! 

Although I knew that this must be what had 
taken place, it was in a dream that I bore him off 
with me below. 


II2 


Friend or Fortune 


Incoherent questions, to which only incoherent 
answers were returned, poured from the lips of 
each of us before we sufficiently calmed down 
either to talk rationally or listen with under- 
standing. 

Interrupted by my frequent ejaculations, this 
was my recovered chum’s strange story. 

When you put off from the island by your- 
self,” he said, “ I watched you sail beyond the 
bluff of the promontory. Presently I saw you 
had put the boat about, and were running for the 
other side. Till the weather came on so dirty I 
thought no more about you. Just as I was 
getting a bit anxious to see the Curlew coming 
round the point, I heard a loud cry of ‘Help! 
Help I ’ 

“ I thought at first that it must be your voice 
that was shouting, but it wasn’t. The cry came 
from a fellow in a cockle-shell of a rowing-boat 
some five or six hundred yards off the island. 

“ He had lost one of his sculls, and didn’t know 
how to use the other. 

“ I holloaed to him what to do, but he only 
splashed about like a girl. The tide was turning 
and the wind blowing off shore — and every 
moment the lubber was getting farther away, 
crying for help all the time. What was I to do, 
Rafe? 

“You see, old man, there was only one thing 
I could do to help him, so I had to do it. If 


An Old Chum on and a New Chum off 113 

he’d known how to use ’em, he might still have 
reached the island — though not perhaps the beach 
— by means of his scull and one of the bottom 
boards. 

“ As I did know how to use ’em, I chucked off 
my coat and waistcoat, tore off my boots, and 
swam away to him. 

“ I was pretty well pumped by the time I got 
near him. He held out the scull to help me : I 
grabbed hold of it, but between the two of us we 
let it slip. The next moment it had floated 
beyond our reach — I was too done up to go 
after it. 

“ I managed to get on the cockle-shell, and 
then — well, I did my best, Rafe, but it was no go. 
Of course, I tried to make headway by paddling 
with the bottom boards — but I couldn’t. We 
were two miles off shore in no time. 

“ I saw you, Rafe — I saw the bother you had 
to weather the headland single-handed. I shouted 
to you, but you didn’t hear — you didn’t see, for 
you never looked. 

** We were out of sight of you fast enough. 
We floated helplessly right out to sea in no time 
— or in what seemed no time. The highest ob- 
ject on the land had disappeared before sunset. 

** In the middle of the night, after she had 
almost run us down, we were picked up by a 
tramp steamer called the Medway, She was 
bound for Cape Town direct, and carried us there. 

8 


1 14 Friend or Fortune 

By the first steamer leaving for England — the 
Rushbrook Castle — I managed to secure berths 
for both of us, after explaining everything to the 
captain, and satisfying him that his owners were 
sure to get paid as soon as I reached England. 

It was the Rushbrook Castle that so nearly 
smashed into this ship — to-night’s only the fourth 
of her voyage to the Thames. 

“ What I felt, Rafe, when I saw you just now 
— almost touching me as the two ships locked and 
heaved over — I shouldn’t know how to tell you if 
I tried. 

I forgot everything else — lost sight of every- 
thing else — but you, old fellow : and I made the 
jump that brought me alongside you.” 

Our hands had found their way together again 
before I asked him — 

“ Who was the other chap, Harry — the fellow 
who has been the real cause of all that’s happened 
to both of us? Who was the chap you swam 
out from the island to rescue ? ” 

“And whom I’ve now left in the lurch — he’ll 
be in a pretty mess when he arrives in London 
without me. His name’s Goyle — Algernon 
Goyle.” 

“ I thought so,” I exclaimed ; “ Pooley’s friend 
Algie ! ” 

And then, in my turn, I told at length, and in 
coherent form, all my story. 

As I spoke of what our schoolfellows had 


An Old Chum on and a New Chum off 115 

suspected and Consett accused me, Harry made 
no attempt to restrain his passionate indignation. 

“ Wait till we get home,” he cried furiously. 
“ Wait till we get home, and go and face the lot 
of ’em. As for old Consett — well, if I’m ever 
accused of doing away with him^ there may be 
some grounds for this accusation ! ” 

I couldn’t help thinking that if the Patient One 
were in that little cabin, he’d really be lucky if he 
got out of it alive. Certainly he was going to 
have a bad time of it when the meeting of which 
Harry spoke should come off — the meeting which 
was to bring the three of us face to face once 
more. 

“We haven’t paid him yet, you know, Rafe — 
you remember? ” 

I did remember, and said so. 

“About your friend Chicken, now . . .’’-began 
Harry. 

“ Pullet — Pooley de Vere Pullet.” 

“ I beg his pardon. Well, this pugilistic 
masher friend of yours . . .” 

“He isn’t a masher now,” again I interrupted : 
I hadn’t omitted an account of his celebrated 
combat with Tommy Jacobs — “ he isn’t a masher 
now ; he’s left that sort of thing off — to a great 
extent, you know.” 

“ Well, anyway, where is he? ” 

“ I’ll go and find him ; I wonder he hasn’t been 
down before now. Come with me, Harry.” 


ii6 


Friend or Fortune 


“ I think I’d better not, Rafe — I better lie low 
till my presence on board has been properly re- 
ported to the captain. What sort of a man is he ? 
How will he take my jumping on board in such 
an unceremonious fashion ? ” he asked uneasily. 
“ The men who were close to you ran fore and aft 
with fenders just before I leaped, and I don’t be- 
lieve a soul but yourself knows I’m here. No- 
body seemed to notice me in the confusion.” 

How would Captain Arkwright take it all? 

Following on the strange advent of the padre, 
Harry’s equally unexpected arrival might well 
disconcert him, to say the least of it. 

I moved to the bunk in which the padre was 
sleeping. He had slept undisturbedly through 
all our eager and excited talk — much more eager 
and excited than my partial repetition of it will 
have made it appear to have been. 

I drew aside the curtain, and showed Harry the 
sleeper’s placid and almost childlike face. 

Then what I had left untold about the padre 
I told him. 

There was no mistake about it — we must be 
prepared for ructions when Harry Saxon’s ad- 
venturous jump aboard was made known to the 
skipper of the Clara Dickins ; even though the 
former had inherited seven thousand a year, and 
the latter was an amiable man. 

But in the mean time, where was Pooley ? 

I went on deck in search of him. 


An Old Chum on and a New Chum off 117 

I was surprised to find that the night had passed. 
Seen through the thinner clouds of vapor that yet 
remained, the rising sun, mounting with majestic 
leisure the eastern sky, looked like a huge red 
globe of fire. Already lifting, the impenetrable 
curtain of fog that had hung between the heavens 
and the sea rolled all away as quickly as it had 
fallen. In vain I searched ; in vain I made in- 
quiries. 

“ Harry,” I said desperately, when I rejoined 
my old chum, “ there are two things to report to 
the captain — that you’re on board and Pooley 
Pullet isn’t ! ” 


ii8 


Friend or Fortune 


CHAPTER XVI. 

THE OTHER END OF THE WORLD. 

C APTAIN WALTER ARKWRIGHT look- 
ed rather glum. 

“This promises,” he observed, “to be the most 
extraordinary trip I have ever made. First one 
extra passenger for me to pick up drops down 
from the sky in an open boat, leaving his wits 
behind him. Now another one rises up from the 
sea and calmly boards me without even a ‘by your 
leave ’ — at the same time as a passage-paid young 
man disappears. I am very sorry ” — turning more 
pointedly to me — “ about your friend Pullet ; I 
liked him. How he managed to fall overboard I 
can’t understand.” 

“ He didn’t, sir,” said Harry, confidently ; “ my 
cousin and I are agreed upon a theory which ac- 
counts for his disappearance otherwise, and which, 
we are certain, will turn out to be a correct one.” 
“ What is it ? ” 

“ His case is about on all-fours with mine, cap- 
tain. When the two ships got mixed up with 
each other I saw an old chum, and jumped for him. 


The Other End of the World 119 

My old chum’s new chum saw an old chum of his 
own, and did the same thing as I did — ^jumped for 
him on the spur of the moment.” 

** He was just the fellow to do it,” I put in. 
“ He called himself a creature of impulse, and was 
always acting on the spur of the moment. Depend 
upon it, sir, he’s on board the Rushbrook Castle ; 
and when we get to Melbourne, a telegram from 
him, or even perhaps a letter, will be waiting for 
me.” 

“ Well, all I can say is that I hope you’re right 
— and I’m glad to think that most likely you are. 
And now, young fellow” — this was to Harry 
Saxon — “what about yourself? I suppose you 
know that I’m sailing for Melbourne direct?” 

“Yes, sir,” said Harry, “and I shall be very glad 
to come with you.” 

“You can’t do anything else,” remarked the 
captain dryly. 

“ No,” laughed cousin Harry ; “and you can’t 
very well do anything else but take me, sir. 
However, the ship won’t lose anything by me, for 
I shall be able to pay.” 

We then took Captain Arkwright almost en- 
tirely into our confidence. He listened not only 
with patience but interest to the long story we 
told him. 

As a result of the interview, it was settled that 
Harry should take the place of Pooley in the 
cabin with the padre and myself ; and long 


120 


Friend or Fortune 


before we reached our destination he was prime 
favorite with captain, officers, crew, and all with 
whom he came in contact on board. 

He and the padre became regular inseparables 
— the latter would not have wanted for another 
champion had need arisen. 

The hopes that had been entertained of making, 
for a ship of the class of the Clara Dickins, an 
exceptionally rapid run from the Thames to 
Melbourne were frustrated ; baffling winds and 
adverse storms conspired against her, and it was 
not until the morning of the twenty-fifth of 
December — a sweltering hot Antipodean Christ- 
mas Day — that she reached her first port of 
discharge, Williamstown for Melbourne, her 
draught preventing her from getting over the 
bar. Although by far the larger proportion of 
the emigrants were going on to Sydney, a scene 
of considerable excitement attended the dis- 
embarkment of those whose journey ended at 
Melbourne. 

Although otherwise quite ready to go ashore, 
Harry and I deferred leaving the ship until we 
had an opportunity of a final interview with her 
master, with whom the financial situation as re- 
gards Harry’s part-passage had to be discussed. 
In the mean time we watched with lively interest 
the commotion on board and on the pier. 

Just as my attention was concentrated on the 
lowering of the gangway, a gentle hand was laid 


The Other End of the World 12 1 


upon my shoulder from behind. Turning, I found 
myself facing the padre, who pointed excitedly 
to the pier-head. 

I don’t know who I am,” he said, with the 
puzzled look that was always so painful, though 
it was so seldom absent from his face whenever 
he spoke of himself ; I don’t know who / am, 
but I know him. He has come back. Look ! ” 

Following the direction of his pointed finger, 
my eyes fell upon a well-remembered though un- 
familiarly garbed figure. 

Attired in the loose and easy get-up of an old 
colonist of the rollicking type, waving energeti- 
cally — as though by way of a general welcome 
from an anciently established settler to all the 
new-comers on board the Clara Dickins — a light- 
colored hat with enormous flaps, there on the 
landing-stage, in the midst of the crowd of workers 
and idlers, stood Pooley de Vere Pullet ! 

He dodged on to the gangway the instant it 
was down, and sprang on board, catching sight of 
me as he did so. 

“ Welcome to Austwalia ! ” was his greeting 
as he clutched my hand. “ I’ve been here for 
days.” 

“ Come down into the cabin, Pooley,” I joy- 
fully cried. Come on, Harry. If the crew 
recognize you, Pooley, they’ll give you an ovation, 
or want you to fight Jacobs again, just to cele- 
brate the occasion. Come on.” 


122 


Friend or Fortune 


I hurried the two of them below, leaving the 
padre on deck. 

“ Pooley, this is Harry Saxon.’’ 

“ Huwwah ! ” 

Without waiting for the explanation that fol- 
lowed the introduction, he seized Harry’s willing 
hand convulsively, and shook it the whole time I 
was speaking. He exhausted his entire vocabu- 
lary of exclamations in the course of my hurried 
narrative. 

“ I did the same thing as you did, Saxon,” he 
exclaimed as I finished ; “ I mean in the manner 
of jumps. I must have caught sight of Algie 
Goyle at the moment you spotted Walph — Algie 
wasn’t far from you. I saw you jump off one 
ship on to the other like a . . . like a kangawoo ; 
and I was seized with the same sort of impulse, 
and jumped on to the steamer to Algie. We both 
swopped horses in the middle of the stweam, you 
know. Before I fairly tumbled to what I’d done, 
the two ships had cleared each other. I was 
homeward bound on the Wushhwook Castle^ and 
poor Walph was left to finish his voyage alone, as 
I thought, on this ship.” 

With some difficulty I subsequently had to 
silence his self-reproaches at what he called his 
desertion of me. But realizing, I was sure, that 
Harry might regard in a similar light his own 
escapade in “ deserting ” Goyle, Pooley kept his 
feelings on the subject to himself until he and I 


The Other End of the World 123 

were alone. As a matter of fact, Harry had often 
been troubled with similar reproaches of con- 
science. With native generosity, he seemed to 
forget the circumstances that had made him the 
bank clerk’s fellow-passenger as well as his rescuer 
in the first instance — for the latter, in all proba- 
bility, would never have been able to keep his 
** cockle-shell ” of a boat afloat by himself. 

“ What did Goyle think ? ” asked Harry. “ Did 
he suppose I had fallen overboard and been 
drowned ? ” 

He did at first,” answered Pooley ; “ but, 
when we came to compare notes, he knew that 
it must have been you I’d seen changing ships. 
The Wushbwook Castle touched at St. Helena, 
where I left her, being just in time to catch a 
boat of the same line to the Cape, where I caught 
another steamer for Melbourne. That was how 
I got here first, after all, and have been waiting 
for you. Luckily for me, Walph, I had our 
bank-notes in my pocket-book : they cawwied me 
thwough. Algie Goyle went on to London — he’s 
back at his ledger long before now.” 

We talked on until we guessed that Captain 
Arkwright would be at liberty to see us, and then 
we all three went to him. 

“ How much must I remain in your debt for, 
sir,” asked Harry, “ until I have telegraphed to 
England and made arrangements about money 
matters ? ” 


124 


Friend or Fortune 


'‘You owe me nothing,” was the hearty re- 
sponse. “ As he’s turned up again, you must 
settle with your cousin’s friend. Pullet, here, 
whose place we will say you took. What you 
had he didn’t have; but he’d paid for it, you 
know.” 

The interview was brief. He shook us all 
warmly by the hand and wished us “ good luck.” 

We sent our baggage ashore, and were just 
about to follow it when Harry remembered the 
padre. 

"We mustn’t go without bidding him good- 
bye. Where is he ? ” 

A hasty search revealed the fact that he must 
have wandered off into Williamstown. Doubt- 
less he had seen others leaving the ship and had 
gone after them, as a child might have done. 

I returned to the captain and told him. He 
expressed considerable concern. 

" However,” he said, " I’ll see that information 
is given ashore at once, and there’s no doubt he’ll 
be found and taken care of.” 

Without further loss of time, having arranged 
for the conveyance of our traps, we set off on 
foot for Pooley’s lodgings in the city. 

" I knew that the ship was expected in to-day,” 
he explained as we stepped out, “ and gave my 
orders accordingly. We’re going to sit down to 
a seasonable dinner of woast beef and plum 
pudding.” 


The Other End of the World 125 

He hurried us along — with such tempting fare 
before us we were nothing loth to hasten our 
pace, and soon passed from the suburbs into the 
city itself. 

Turning, abreast and rather sharply, the corner 
of a fine broad street, we almost ran into Jacobs, 
who, half drunk, reeled in front of us out of the 
door of a dram shop. 

With an oath and a curse he staggered out of 
our way, but not before I had seen the look he 
directed at the unconscious Pooley, who was too 
much engrossed in a voluble conversation with 
Harry to notice it. 

I had seen that look on Jacob’s face before: 
for the second time it made me shudder. I 
wished that the fellow had gone on to Sydney. 
I couldn’t shake off the idea that his presence in 
Melbourne boded us no good. It seemed to me 
that his black scowl fell like a shadow across our 
path on that sunny Christmas morning at the 
other end of the world. 

‘‘The coward will have his revenge yet,” I 
thought nervously, “ if ever he gets a chance.” 

His chance was soon to come. 


126 


Friend or Fortune 


CHAPTER XVII. 

ADOPTING A FATHER. 

P OOLEY’S little dinner-party was a brilliant 
success. In the intervals when our mouths 
were empty, our three tongues wagged fast. 
Long before the exodus of plum-pudding, Harry 
and our host were on the footing of old friends. 
Harry could get on with anybody ; he had that 
rare gift of sympathy that draws all hearts. 

After dinner, we addressed ourselves to the 
subject of what we should do, in connection with 
ways and means. I was soon exhausted. 

Of course, Rafe,” said Harry, “ you and I 
will get off home. Pooley won’t mind a dissolu- 
tion of partnership in the circumstances : there’s 
no need for you to go shepherding when I’ve got 
seven thousand a year behind me. Besides, now 
that you can show me as a living proof that you 
were guilty of no foul play, it’s absolutely neces- 
sary for you to come back with me in order to 
punch old Consett’s head.” 

“ Hear, hear,” breathed Pooley sympathetically. 


Adopting a Father 127 

‘‘ You can’t punch his head fourteen thousand 
miles away from it.” 

** Impossible,” agreed Pooley. 

Very well, then. Now, as to raising the wind. 
I don’t think there ought to be much difficulty. 
I shall go to one of the banks here and get them 
to telegraph to their London agents, who will go 
and see Mr. Dexton. Dexton will settle with 
them, and then a telegram will come out opening 
a credit for us sufficient for our purposes.” 

“ You won’t need to do all that,” said Pullet. 
“ I’ll put you up to a better plan. In the first 
place — of course, if you don’t mind, you know 
— I shall go home with you. We’ll all go to- 
gether.” 

“ Bravo ! ” cried Harry and I with one voice. 
Pooley’s determination was particularly pleasing 
to me, for how could I have gone without him 
after all his generosity ? 

“Yes,” he went on, “I’m quite set on going 
back. I’ve had an impulse that way ever since I 
found out the twue state of affairs in the colony. 
Things here ar’n’t so wosy as we thought, Wafe. 
Almost as soon as I landed, I met an old school- 
fellow. He was captain of the school, in a tail- 
coat, while I was the youngest kid, in jacket and 
knickerbockers. He’s been here for years, and 
he opened my eyes. He’s done well himself, but 
says there ar’n’t the same chances now as when 
he came out. He’s in the shipping line, and 


128 


Friend or Fortune 


offered to lend me enough to take me home, as 
soon as I felt like going, which he said wouldn’t 
be long. Now, if we go and explain matters to 
him, I know he’ll stump up the necessary for all 
of us. I’ll bowwow my passage-money of you, 
Saxon, and pay you back by bowwowing of some- 
body else when we get to London ; and then I’ll 
settle down to a situation again — until I lose it. 
Excuse me for not calling you ‘ Hawwy,’ Hawwy ; 
but I can’t pwonounce ‘ Hawwy,’ you know, be- 
cause of the two beastly ‘ r’s ’ in it.” 

After a few inquiries respecting his friend, we 
decided to act on Pooley’s suggestion and lay our 
case before him. 

No time like the pwesent,” said Pooley ; 
“ we’ll all go to his house now, and I’ll show 
you some of the sights of the city on the 
way.” 

Arm in arm we sallied forth. Mr. Edward 
Robison — “Teddie,” as Pooley called his old 
school-fellow — turned out “up to description”; 
he was one of the right sort. He at once under- 
took to arrange all we wanted ; he would find us 
passages home, and we were to pay on arrival. 
He wouldn’t even telegraph to Mr. Dexton 
first. 

“ This is jolly,” said Harry, as we walked back 
hours afterwards, for Mr. Robison entertained us 
with true colonial hospitality. “ Now we shall be 
able to take Consett and the fellows at the school. 


Adopting a Father 129 

Rafe, by surprise. Not a soul will know we’re 
coming till we get there.” 

N earing Pooley lodgings again, we had to steer 
into the roadway in order to keep clear of a little 
crowd that had gathered on the footpath round 
a big policeman, who appeared to be interrogat- 
ing somebody, presumably in order to ascertain 
his name and address. 

‘‘ An accident, I suppose,” observed Pooley, 
“ or a case of ‘ dwunk and incapable.’ ” 

We were passing on, and in a few seconds 
should have been out of ear-shot. But just in 
time we caught the words, uttered in a voice and 
tone we all knew well — 

I am called the padre, but I don’t know who I 
>> 

am. 

Without a word we turned and walked back, 
pushing our way through the laughing crowd up 
to the side of the big policeman. 

Whilst Harry told him that he knew his prisoner 
— for he was gripping the padre by the elbow — 
and would be responsible for him, I slipped some 
coins into his palm. 

The big policeman — influenced, we will hope, 
solely by Harry’s words, — instantly released his 
hold of the padre’s arm. I took it within mine, 
and Harry tucked his other arm within his own 
left. Pooley kept close to our rear, and in this 
order we moved quickly away. 

“ Now, then,” said the policeman to those who 
9 


130 


Friend or Fortune 


remained, some of whom showed a disposition to 
follow us, ** what are you waiting here for ? Move 
on, please.” 

Gaining the corner of a quieter street, we turned 
into it. 

Speaking to our rescued companion very gently 
and quietly, we soon elicited the fact that since 
getting off the ship and wandering along from 
Williamstown, he had been walking aimlessly 
about the city, till at last he had been accosted by 
the suspicious but easily corrupted big policeman, 
his answers to whom had soon attracted the 
passers-by. 

“ Pooley,” exclaimed Harry, suddenly, “ I wish 
you’d walk on a bit with the padre. I want to talk 
to Ralph a minute — about him, you understand.” 

“Come on, padre,” said Pooley, walking him on 
ahead. 

“What is it, Harry?” I asked. 

“ Well, old man, it’s this. What are we to do 
about the padre ? ” 

“We shall have to tell Captain Arkwright we’ve 
found him.” 

“ And what will happen then ? ” 

“ I suppose the authorities will take charge of 
the poor old chap.” 

“ Of course they will, and shut him up. What 
a pity ! He’s so quiet and harmless and innocent, 
and with us he seems to understand almost every- 
thing that’s going on.” 


Adopting a Father 13 1 

** That's what I can’t make out.” 

“ It’s the past that floors him. But it seems 
jolly hard that he should be locked up for the rest 
of his life just because he can’t remember who he 
is and where he came from. There really seems 
to be nothing else the matter with him at times ; 
and there’s never anything dangerously the matter 
with him. Although he can’t manage it, I’m cer- 
tain that he often tries to remember who he is, 
and he’d tell us if he could. I’ve got an idea that 
perhaps some day he will manage it.” 

“You’ve got some plan in your head, Harry.” 

“ I know I have, and it’s just this. Let’s take 
charge of the poor old chap — take him to London 
— take him to some swell doctors there, and see 
what they can do for him. There’s no reason 
why we should forget that we’ve got loads of 
money.” 

“ You have, Harry.” 

“ We have, Rafe. I don’t suppose we shall 
have control of it till I come of age, but, all the 
same, Dexton or somebody will have to fork out 
pretty liberally in the meantime. So why shouldn’t 
we undertake to look after the padre ? Little by 
little we may be able to get some clue from him 
which will put us on the right track, and then we 
can advertise in the hope of finding his friends 
and restoring him to them. And if nobody ever 
turns up to claim him, let him end his days at 
Westwood — not in a pauper lunatic asylum ! ” 


132 


Friend or Fortune 


Hadn’t I a right to be proud of my chum — 
my chum Harry? Only it was an awful nuisance 
that the feeling got in my throat and stuck there, 
because I wanted to say something, but couldn’t. 

I knew you’d agree with me,” he went on. I 
knew you were not the sort of chap to have any 
hand in cutting the helpless old man adrift from 
us and leaving him to his fate, a stranger in a 
strange city. I counted on your help the moment 
the idea struck me. I’ll put the whole thing in a 
little different way — put it in a nutshell. Rafe, 
you have no father, and I have no father. We’ll 
adopt ‘ the padre ’ ! ” 

Adopt him ! ’* I cried. 

^^Yes, as our father. We’ll do what weVe 
often done with our belongings before— share him 
between us. It’s singular that we’ve always had 
to call him ‘ padre.’ You’ll adopt your half of 
him?” 

** Of course I will.” 

Pooley ! ” 

Pooley came hastening back to us, and we 
hastened to tell him what we’d just agreed to 
do. 

“ Hold hard,” said he, delighted ; “ fair play’s a 
jewel, and I don’t see why I should be left out of 
this adopting business. I claim a third share in 
the concern.” 

It’s fairly yours,” I said, by the right of con- 
quest.” 


Adopting a Father 133 

“ So it is,” assented Harry. '' I know all about 
the licking you gave that bully on board ship, 
Pooley. Come on, padre ; we’ll take care of you. 
You’ve got three sons — all of a sudden.” 


134 


Friend or Fortune 


CHAPTER XVIII. 

IN DIRE PERIL. 

r the end of three days — during which we 



kept our adopted parent “ very dark,” for 
fear he might be taken away, after all — we re- 
ceived a letter from Mr. Robison, in consequence 
of which we waited upon him at his office. 

I’m expecting the arrival,” he informed us, 
“ of a fine steamer called the Dusky Bride. I’ve 
got to find her a cargo for London, and she’ll sail, 
by way of the Horn, as soon as she’s full. ^ 
know the owners well, and the captain, too, and I 
shall be able to arrange your business with them 
all right. The Dusky Bride is what we call i 
tramp, not a regular liner, which will make it all 
the easier for me to settle matters, and you’ll find 
her a very comfortable ship. As her cabin ac- 
commodation is, of course, limited, you’ll probably 
have her all to yourselves. I mean that she’s not 
likely to carry any other passengers.” 

‘‘ Can she carry a fourth, Mr. Robison ? ” asked 
Harry. 

“ I dare say she could. Why ? ” 


In Dire Peril 


135 

Harry told him about the padre, and of our 
determination to carry him with us. Mr. Robison 
looked a little dubious, but promised to let us 
know. 

On New Year’s day he summoned us to meet 
him again. 

The Dusky Bride had arrived, and was unload- 
ing. Her homeward freight was ready for her, 
and she would sail as soon as she had got it on 
board, and we could all sail by her. The only 
formality to be observed was the affixing of 
Pooley’s signature to an already prepared docu- 
ment in the shape of a letter to the owners. 
Harry wanted to sign as well ; and, not to be be- 
hind-hand, I also volunteered to adorn the paper 
with my sign-manual. But we were laughingly 
reminded that we were only infants ” in the dis- 
criminating eyes of the law. 

“ Let’s see, Pooley,” said Mr. Robison, a trifle 
doubtfully, “ you are twenty-one, aren’t you ? ” 

“ Of course I am,” replied Pooley indignantly, 
as he added a twenty-three-years’-old flourish to 
his portentous-looking “ Pooley de Vere Pullet.” 

In a week’s time we were warned to get on 
board, and obeyed the summons with alacrity. 
At the last moment a hitch occurred — two of the 
deck hands and several of the firemen failed to 
turn up. An officer went ashore, and supplied 
their places with almost anybody he could pick 
up. 


136 Friend or Fortune 

Before we had been at sea twenty-four hours 
we discovered in one of the substitutes so ob- 
tained for the stoke-hole our old and undesirable 
acquaintance Jacobs. He told us, surlily enough, 
that he had soon tired of the colony, and had 
jumped at the chance of working his way home 
again. The fact was, we had no doubt, that he 
had squandered in a few days in dissipation such 
money as he had landed with, and had been 
obliged to take the first job that offered, what- 
ever it was and wherever it took him. 

Poor Dusky Bride ! she was on her last voyage. 

Five days after losing sight of the North Isle 
of New Zealand, an alarming accident happened 
to her machinery. How serious were the mishap 
and its anticipated consequences was proved by 
the fact, soon generally known, that it was in dis- 
cussion to reverse her course and run back for the 
nearest port, for the engineers reported it to be 
impossible to repair the damages. 

She was actually put about and under sail ; but 
she carried so little that next to no way was made, 
and it was obvious, even to landsmen’s eyes, that 
it was exceedingly difficult to steer her. 

Almost without warning, a terrible hurricane 
from the south burst upon the already partially 
disabled ship. The waves washed over her 
from stem to stern, and the engine-room was 
flooded. 


In Dire Peril 


137 

There was only one alternative to foundering 
where she was. Shipping some frightful seas 
during the manoeuvre, her head was worked 
round, and she drove northward before the storm 
like a log. 

For two nights and two days she kept afloat 
and held together. In the middle of the third 
night the end came. 

She was going down fast. 

Amidst dreadful confusion — for the men had 
got out of hand — her two uninjured boats were 
lowered, just escaping being swamped in the 
process, though the sea was running less high. 
There might have been room for all had order 
been maintained. 

But it wasn’t. The few men who, so to speak, 
tried to stem the torrent, were carried away in its 
rush. 

Despite all the entreaties of the captain, the 
men — by far too many of them were Asiatic and 
other foreigners of a very different stamp from 
the genuine British sailor— scrambled in where 
and how they could — scrambled in and put off. 

Both the first mate and the second were washed 
away — and I fear that others shared their fate. 
At last it seemed that the captain, we four pas- 
sengers, and the stoker Jacobs were the only souls 
left on board. 

A boat with a gaping hole in her side , still 
swung in one of the davits. 


138 Friend or Fortune 

Our chance of escape in it was a faint but the 
only one. 

As we were getting it overside, the padre fell 
on the slippery deck, just as one of the last big 
waves of the storm broke over it. 

The receding water carried him with it over the 
battered bulwark before a hand could be stretched 
out to save him. 

** Now in with you, all — quick,” cried the cap- 
tain, as the boat was launched. 

Jacobs was first to obey — we followed him, 
keeping the crazy little craft in which we were 
to weather the fag-end of the storm close to the 
rolling side of the sinking ship, for her master’s 
descent : for the descent of the last man to leave 
her. 

Nay, he never left her, for at the moment that 
he was about to do so, a spar, or some portion of 
a splintered mast, came crashing down upon his 
head and felled him to the deck. 

“ Stand by if you can — shove off if you can’t,” 
cried Harry — and he sprang from the boat to the 
ship and gained the fallen captain’s side. 

“ Shove off ! ” screamed Jacobs, “ she’s settling, 
and the boat will be sucked down with her. 
Shove off ! ” 

** Stand by, Pooley ! ” I shouted, and we kept 
her close in for our chum. 

He joined us again quickly enough, but not a 
moment too soon. 


In Dire Peril 


139 

“ Dead ! ” he said, as he grasped an oar. 
“ Shove off.” 

We pulled for life. 

The Dusky Bride gave one mighty lurch, rolled 
over on her side, and sank from sight forever, 
her dead master going down with her. 

‘‘ I shall never forget his last words as long as 
ever I live,” Harry declared afterwards. “ He 
uttered them with more than the bitterness of 
death in his dying breath. ‘ I could have done 
it ! I could have done it! I could have done it ! ’ 
he gasped three times ; the last time his voice 
was only a wail. ‘ If ever you get to England, 
tell them I could have done it ! — with a British 
crew I could have saved the ship and every soul on 
board ! ” 

Harry and I rowed — he on the stroke thwart, I 
behind him ; Pooley baled, the water pouring in 
as fast as, with cap and hands, he threw it out ; 
Jacobs steered, in an almost vain endeavor to 
avoid the broadsides of the billows. 

With death threatening us at every stroke, we 
struggled on for about a thousand yards. 

Pooley tore off his coat, and stuffed it into the 
boat’s gaping side. 

Harry and I, panting for breath, lay on our 
oars. 

A cry rang over the water. A man was drown- 
ing close at hand. 

We turned our heads. The moon was breaking 


140 


Friend or Fortune 


through the black clouds. Light was streaming 
on the blacker waves. 

The drowning man who had cried for help was 
clinging to some of the floating gear of the sunken 
steamer. 

We saw him clearly: quite clearly we saw his 
face — the white face of the padre. 

“ Steer for that man ! ” — and Harry dipped his 
blade again in a flash. 

“I won’t,” refused Jacobs. “The boat’s in 
danger of swamping every moment as it is, and 
another man would sink us. We haven’t water 
and food for ourselves for more than a day or 
two, and none to spare for another. I see who it 
is — let the looney drown.” 

“ Steer for that man ! ” 

“ I won’t ! ” 

Already the fellow had jammed the rudder 
hard against us. 

“ I won’t. And I say he shan’t be taken aboard, 
row for him as you like.” 

His right hand left the tiller, against which he 
thrust his back. 

The next moment, “Look out, Harry!”! 
cried, for the long blade of a dagger-like knife 
glistened between his fingers. 

Harry saw it too. In a moment he had lifted 
1 his oar from the rowlock. He poised it in his two 
) strong hands, the butt levelled straight for the 
head of the man who threatened him. 


In Dire Peril 


141 

“ There’s no room for him, and I say he shan’t 
I be taken aboard this boat.” 

And I say he shall — if I have to knock you 
out of it to make room for him ! ” 


142 


Friend or Fortune 


CHAPTER XIX. 

JUST IN TIME. 

I T was not a time for words. The life of a 
drowning man was at stake, and the coward 
who not only refused to take his part in saving 
him, but swore that he shouldn’t be saved, held 
a knife in his hand. Anything like a struggle 
would be almost certain to upset the boat. 

Harry Saxon did the best thing that it was 
possible to do in the circumstances — he cracked 
the recalcitrant steersman over the skull with the 
butt end of his oar. 

Jacobs’ head fell back over the stern-post, and 
his nasty looking weapon dropped from his sense- 
less fingers. 

Pooley picked it up, and threw it away. 

A dozen vigorous strokes brought us alongside 
the wreckage to which the padre was clinging — 
clinging still, though he had ceased to call for 
help, ceased all his struggles. We rescued him, 
but only just in time. 

Not till dawn was breaking did either he or 
Jacobs recover consciousness. 


Just in Time 


143 

It had been with the utmost difficulty that we 
had so trimmed the boat as to keep her afloat. 

Harry bound up Jacobs’ broken forehead as well 
as he could with his own handkerchief — I believe 
that even as he bent over him Jacobs would have 
stabbed him if his knife had been within grasp. 

Blazing hot, the sun poured his scorching fire 
upon us. 

All day long, nothing came in sight — no sail 
of passing ship, no smoke of steamer. 

The night fell, and passed away. Again the 
furnace-fires of the sun reddened the sky, and 
heated the air till it touched our faces like smoke. 

What we had to eat we ate ; what we had 
to drink we drank; when we could sleep we 
slept. 

There were some more days and some more 
nights, but I don’t know how many. 

When the end came we were all asleep, or at 
least insensible. 

Each must have known as he dropped off that 
unless one kept awake to bale, the leaky boat 
would gradually fill, even in the absolute calm that 
had followed the storm ; but nobody cared. We 
were too far gone for that. Despair had followed 
fast on feverish hope — apathy had succeeded 
delirium. 

As a matter of fact, our boat was half-full when 
she run aground. I think it was more the lapping 
on my face of the water she had shipped than the 


Friend or Fortune 


144 

sound of her grating keel on the shingle that woke 
me. 

I clutched a thwart, and struggled to my knees ; 
and presently I rose to my feet. 

I tried to call to Harry and to Pooley — but my 
throat was too parched, my tongue was too sore, 
my lips were too blistered. 

I touched them, and they moved. I got out a 
word — one word. 

Land ! ” 

By the time they had roused themselves and 
risen, with the same difficulty that I had experi- 
enced, I had stepped overside, mechanically. 

Gradually we realized what had happened. We 
had been cast ashore on one of the Island Para- 
dises of the Pacific Ocean. 

Harry found his voice first. 

Land ! ” he shouted — it was such a thin, funny 
shout. “ Land ! Land ! We’re saved ! ” — as he 
roused up Jacobs and the padre. 

We fell, every one of us, again and again as we 
hauled the boat up high and dry. 

The tropical flowers that grew almost to the 
edge of the golden beach were so bright, the 
palms were so green, that fresh water must be 
flowing on the land — pray God not far off. 

We had not to seek it : it was brought to us. 

For hardly had we turned our faces from the 
boats before a loudly shouted English hail reached 
our ears, and a man came running to us. 


Just in Time 


145 


Without a word from one of us — with only a 
look at the five of us and another at the knocked- 
about craft from which we had landed, he seemed 
to know all that we need have told him. 

“ Ser-vivors of the Dusky Bride^ cast away,” he 
said, cheerily. ‘‘All right. Water? Stand by 
till I bring it.” 

He left us, and returned with water. How we 
drank! “Not wisely but too much;” though 
every draught seemed to put fresh life into us. 

Then we began to ply him with eager questions, 
painfully spoken. But he stopped us. 

“ Steady, mates — steady a bit. You’re Eng- 
lish?” 

“ Yes.” 

“ The lot of you English ? ” 

“ Yes.” 

“ Then I tell you what it is,” he said, making 
the most astounding and mysterious remark in the 
most business-like and matter-of-fact manner ; 
“ I tell you what it is. You’re all just in time 
to come in handy for the Resurrection.” 

10 


146 


Friend or Fortune 


CHAPTER XX. 

A SINFUL PARADISE. 

F or the what?” ejaculated Jacobs. 

“ The resurrection ! ” cried Harry and I. 

“ Wesurwection ! ” echoed Pooley. 

“ Yus. Ain’t yer never ’eard of a resurrection 
before? You’re all in for a reg’ler treat in the 
way o’ one, anyhow. Howsumever, that ain’t the 
first thing to be talked about. What did I say 
just now when I first clapped my peepers on yer? 
Why, I looks at yer and the name what’s wrote 
on the boat, and I says, ‘ Survivors from the 
Dusky Bride^ cast away.’ That’s what you are. 
I’m Davy Jones; honest old Davy Jones they 
call me. Well, then I says ‘Water!’ I says it 
with my tongue, and I says it in my ’eart. Next 
I alloods to the resurrection. I’ll cackle more 
about that by-and-by. What I says now is 
Grub 1 This way for grub. Keep close in my 
wake.” 

Just above the beach was a fringe of thick 
wood, through which we accompanied our loqua- 


A Sinful Paradise 


147 

cious conductor, who kept up his gabbling talk 
all the time. On the other side of the little 
wood was a large patch of cultivated ground, 
beyond which we saw a village of considerable 
size. 

Before we reached it a great crowd came out to 
meet us. It was evident that we had been seen 
as we emerged from the thicket. Scores of 
natives — men, women, and children — rushed up 
to us, shouting and gesticulating. Besides these 
— and more leisurely — some half a hundred white 
men approached us. 

But Davy Jones hurried us into almost the first 
house ” we came to. It was a rather prettily 
constructed wooden hut, erected on a raised 
staging of stone, and decorated (outside as well 
as in) with gayly colored cocoanut plaiting. 

The flooring was of lattice-work, on which were 
piled plenty of native-made mats. Cooking and 
eating utensils were scattered about, and some 
bowls of glazed crockery. 

“This is my ’ouse,” announced Davy Jones ; 
“ you’d better lay down a minute while I go out 
and kick some natives.” 

We sunk on the matted floor as he left the hut 
— those mats seemed to us as soft as down, 
though they were not as soft by any means. 

Having kicked away the natives, and dispersed, 
presumably by other means, the curious crowd of 
white men, our host rejoined us. 


Friend or Fortune 


148 

“Who says grub? You all says grub, nateral 
— being sur-vivers. Grub it is.” 

He put food before us. We didn’t stop to as- 
certain what it was. It was food, any way ; and 
we ate it. Jones kept on talking, but I don’t 
think one of us paid the slightest attention to 
what he was saying, even when we had finished 
eating. I know that in my own case his voice 
soon began to sound as though it were a voice 
very far away. Gradually his words seemed all 
to run into each other. His voice itself became 
a drone, and the drone abuzz, as of some gigantic 
bee humming rather pleasantly, but a long way 
off — farther and farther off still. Farther and 
farther off till I heard it no longer. 

I had fallen asleep. 

When I woke, my companions were awake too, 
with the exception of the padre, who still slum- 
bered peacefully. 

Going to the beaded cloth that did duty for a 
door, I moved it aside, and saw that the sun was 
hours later in the sky. 

Old Davy Jones — I suppose he had grown tired 
of talking without any listeners, and had left us 
to sleep in peace — was returning by himself, but 
followed at a respectful distance by a mixed mob 
of the irrepressible natives. 

“ All awake and spry again ? ” he asked as he 
entered the hut — “ that’s all right. Oh ! one of 
you a-snoozin’ still, eh ? ” 


A Sinful Paradise 


149 

“ He don’t count,” said Jacobs; “ he’s a looney, 
and wouldn’t have been here at all if I’d had 
my way.” 

looney, is he? Can he fight? — that’s 
the great thing. He looks pretty fit. I’ve 
knowed looneys as was reg’lar greedy for 
fightin’.” 

“ Fighting ! ” cried Harry and I. 

*‘Yus — that’s what you’re all in for, along of 
the resurrection I allooded to. ‘ Water ! ’ says I 
fust to all you sur-vivers ; ‘ resurrection ! ’ says I 
next ; * grub ! ’ says I third. I says ’em with my 
tongue, and I says ’em in my ’eart. You’ve had 
the water, likewise you’ve had the grub. Now 
you’re a-goin’ for to get some resurrection — fust 
by way of a explanation, all fair and shipshape 
and above-board. I’m honest old Davy Jones, I 
am, and this here’s my locker — ha ! ha ! — where I 
can talk free. ’Cause why ? ’Cause there ain’t 
no monsoos here, a-jibberin’ and a-jabberin’ and 
a-domineerin’.” 

For the first time I took stock of ^‘honest old 
Davy Jones.” He didn’t look honest at all. A 
more villainous looking old rascal — he seemed 
about sixty — I’d never set eyes on. That he was 
an Englishman (I should think a Cockney of the 
purest breed) and a sailor, I regret to say there 
could be no doubt. His speech proclaimed him 
one, and his bearing the other. He wore a pair 
of European boots, blue serge trousers, and a 


i5o Friend or Fortune 

flannel shirt. A huge palm leaf was stuck on the 
back of his head by way of a hat. 

Returning no direct answer to the rapid ques- 
tionings of Harry, Pooley, and myself, but waiv- 
ing them aside with a general promise that we 
should soon understand “ heverythink,” he pro- 
ceeded to enlighten us slowly in his own long- 
winded fashion. 

“ This here place what you sur-vivers have 
drifted to is a Yighland,'' he began. “ As to what 
sort of a Yighland it is, you’ll be able to see for 
yourselves by a-navigatin’ of it — of course if so 
be as you comes out sur-vivers from the resurrec- 
tion as well as the Dusky Bride, What its name 
is put down as on the chart I don’t know, but the 
cussed Ka-knackers, as we calls the natives, says 
it’s Te Omahao — which means in their lingo ‘ the 
spot where it’s always sunshine ’ — so if yer like 
for to call it Sunny Yighland, you’re welcome and 
free so for to do, mates. 

“ Very well. Now who’s on the Yighland, and 
how did we come here ? This is all a-leadin’ up 
to the resurrection, so don’t get unpatient. 

“ Besides me, and o’ course leavin’ the Ka- 
knackers out o’ the reckonin’, there’s about a 
’undred whites. Of these here ’undred whites, a 
good sixty is French monsoos ; the rest is English, 
with a small sprinklin’ of Yanks. 

“ As to how we all come here, well, that yarn 
might be called a warious yarn, in a manner of 


A Sinful Paradise 


151 

speaki'n’. But having got here, one way and an- 
I other — warious, as I said — there don’t seem none 
of us as wants for to leave. ’Cause why ? ’Cause 
we’ve got here most heverythink we want — wives 
and baccy inclooded : and we don’t never have to 
put a ’and to work — not anything to speak of. 
The Ka-knackers does all the work, as is nateral. 
Some come here original same as you — sur-vivers ; 
some found their way here a’ puppose, for to 
escape ’angin’, and prison, and sich like.” 

I put the speaker down as belonging to the 
second lot, but didn’t say anything. 

“ But howsumever we come, we should all be a 
reg’ler ’appy fam’ly together if it wasn’t for the 
Frenchies. The Frenchies say as they was here 
j fust, and they goes on a-dominatin’ over us Eng- 
lishmen in a way as is enough for to make our 
blood bile. It do make it bile. They claim as 
the Yighland is theirs. Just look here, and I’ll 
show you.” 

Standing at the doorway — from which a number 
of natives who had crept up unseen scuttled away 
— he pointed to a larger building in the centre of 
the village, from the roof of which drooped lazily 
the folds of the French tri-color. 

Look at that now ! It’s a insult to us Eng- 
lishmen, that’s what it is — a insult. I says it 
with my tongue, and I says it in my ’eart. It’s a 
insult ! Suppose they was here fust — what o’ 
that ? That’s only a accident, any way. We 


152 


Friend or Fortune 


should have been here before them if they hadn’t 
been here before us. A Englishman always prigs 
a country fust unless some cussed foreigner’s been 
before him. These French monsoos has got the 
best things in the Yighland — the best ’uts and 
heverythink. Besides a-priggin’ the best of 
heverythink, and besides a-domineerin’ and a- 
dominatin’ over us, they treats the poor natives 
shameful. 

Wait half a jiffey,” he broke off ; “I can make 
out three Ka-knacker women a-hidin’ behind them 
trees — stowed away so as to be ’andy to crawl up 
again and come intrudlin’ into our conversation 
by a-listenin’ to it. As I was a-sayin’, these 
French monsoos treats the poor natives shameful. 
Just stand by while I go and kick them three 
gals out o’ their skins, and I’ll go on explainin’ to 
you.” 

He dived forward with a rush to the spot he 
had indicated, and commenced laying about him 
with his foot ; but, half-screaming and half-laugh- 
ing, the eavesdroppers fled from him untouched. 

Sending a volley of oaths after them, the 
chivalrous Davy Jones rejoined us, and resumed 
his observations. 

‘‘ As I was remarkin’ — with my tongue and in 
my ’eart, equal — these disgustin’ Frenchies claims 
as they’re the howners of the Yighland, and every 
now and again they’re sort of backed up by a 
French gun-boat as comes a-sailin’ in here as bold 


A Sinful Paradise 


153 

I as brass. She's called the Repub4ick-you — spelt 
I all wrong with a ‘ q ' ! ” 

I This was too much. Harry, Pooley, and I 
looked at each other, and broke into a roar of 
laughter that, in our weak condition, soon ex- 
hausted us. But “ Repub-lick-you ” for R^pu- 
blique was more than we could stand. 

Our laughter awoke the padre. Harry walked 
up to him, and placed more water and a little 
more food by his side, speaking to him soothingly 
the while in an undertone. Tom Jacobs availed 
himself of the pause to indulge in a few confiden- 
i dential asides with Jones. I believed that he 
divined already what was coming. The older 
' man appeared a good deal taken aback at the 
i hilarity which had so unexpectedly interrupted 
him. In fact, for some moments he seemed dis- 
posed to be resentful, but evidently thought 
better of it, for it wasn’t long before he continued 
his harangue as though it had never been broken off. 

“ After the very fust visit of this Repub-lick-yoUj 
I we came to blows with the monsoos, on account 
of them being cockier than ever. They crowed 
and strutted about like bantams on a dung-hill, 
and him what crowed the loudest then is a-crow- 
ing the loudest now — and so he will do till his 
neck’s twisted.” 

This last remark was emphasized — apparently 
unconsciously — by a horrible twitching and screw- 
ing of the speaker’s sinewy fingers. 


Friend or Fortune 


154 

“This here Jooles Ferdernong as Fm alloodin’ 
to is the ’ead man on their side — Fm boss on ours. 
Well, I snaps my fingers at this here Jooles — so — 
and I says ‘ Waterloo ! ’ says I, with my tongue 
and in my ’eart. Jooles he ups and calls me a 
canal. Now, I wasn’t going to be called a canal 
by any Froggy Frenchman, livin’ or dead; so I 
’its him in the jawr. He strikes me in the stum- 
mick with his foot, as was a insult, and painful. 

“ It ended by all the Englishmen going for all 
the Frenchmen, the Yanks joinin’ in on our side. 

“ Waterloo wasn’t in it with the lickin’ as we 
give ’em, me being the Book o’ Wellington. But 
the lickin’ didn’t make no difference in the matter 
o’ their cockiness. They still said as Sunny Yigh- 
land was theirs, and continued for to behave as 
such. ‘The Yighland’s yours, is it?’ I says; 
‘ we’ll see about that.’ 

“Without no more to-do, being a bit of a 
scholard, as you must have took note, I sits down 
and drawed up a partition to the British Goving- 
ment.” 

“ You dwew up what? ” said Pooley. 

“ A partition to the British Govingment.” 

“ A petition to the Bwitish Government ! ” 

“Yus, a-askin’ the Queen to give Jooles Ferder- 
nong one in the eye by priggin’ the Yighland her- 
self — makin’ it a reg’ler British persession, with 
me as governor. 

“ I drawed up that partition proper — I guess 


A Sinful Paradise 155 

the Queen don’t often get one like it. It was 
signed and crossed all over, and sent aboard the 
fust ship that got far enough out of her course to 
be signalled from the beach. We told ’em to post 
it, and they promised faithful, but we ain’t never 
had a answer. 

“The Frenchies knowed about the partition, 
and for everlastin* they’re a-chippin’ us about not 
gettin’ no answer. They’ve growed unbearable, 
and a end has got to be put to their unbearable- 
ness, once for all. And now’s the time, for ’tain’t 
long since the Repub-lick-you was here, and she 
ain’t due back again for another six months. We 
couldn’t do it if the Repub-lick^you was here, with 
her sojers and sailors and guns.” 

“ Couldn’t do what ? ” 

“ What we’re a-goin’ to do. What’s as good as 
done now we’ve got you five Englishers to join 
in. Us Englishmen is a-goin’ for to rise in resur- 
rection again’ the French ! ” 

“Rise in insurrection?” exclaimed Harry. 

“ Call it //^surrection if you like — I prefers a 
Bible word myself,” said Davy Jones piously. 

He lowered his voice and spoke in deadly, un- 
mistakable earnest, his villainous face distorted 
by genuine passion. 

“ The job’s to be done at night. We’ve got 
more arms than they know of. We’re going to 
creep on ’em like panthers, and slit the throat of 
every mother’s son of ’em before he can wake. 


Friend or Fortune 


156 

Then the whole place is ours, and no mistake, 
with all they’ve got out of it. 

‘‘ Now you know what you five has got to take 
part in. 

‘‘ For thafs the Resurrection ! ” 


Passing the Word 


157 


CHAPTER XXL 

PASSING THE WORD. 

P OOLEY was the first to speak ; in fact, he 
opened his mouth as soon as Davy Jones 
I closed his. 

“Your plot’s a neat little thing,” he observed 
coolly ; “ it stwikes me as being worthy of you, 
Jones.” 

“Thank ’ee,” said Davy Jones heartily, accept- 
ing the dubious compliment in good faith. 

“ But one point seems to have escaped your 
calculation.” 

“ What’s that ? ” 

“Just this — suppose all goes off well, without 
any hitch, and you collah the island all sewene, 
what are you going to do when the Fwench man- 
o’-war does come back, with its soldiers and sailors 
and guns ? ” 

“ Bless yer soul, we ain’t forgot that. We’re 
a-goin’ to put it all down to the Ka-knackers ; 
and they’ll cop it ’ot, they will. We’re a-goin’ 
to say as they done it all.” 


Friend or Fortune 


158 

He proceeded to entertain us by a recital of all 
the details of the plot in progress. 

There is no need for me to repeat the particulars 
in similar detail : suffice it to say that they proved 
the grim sincerity of the conspirators, and that the 
whole thing had been deliberately thought out, 

“Now that you’ve come,” said Jones again, 
“ we’re ready for ’em — ripe for action.” 

“ WerQ not fit for much action yet, and shan’t 
be for a day or two,” remarked Pooley. 

Harry and I had said very little : we knew that 
Pooley was talking with a purpose, and that his 
apparent sympathy with Jones’s murderous 
scheme was simulated. As for Jacobs, he had 
confined himself to a few careful inquiries con- 
cerning the personal risks which would have to 
be incurred. 

I was very anxious to break up the conference. 

Looking out of the hut, “ The sun’s getting 
low,” I said ; “ and we shall be all the better for 
turning in early and turning out late.” 

“ Gome on, then,” responded Davy ; “ I’ve got 
you a house all to yourselves, where you can have 
such a snooze as you ain’t had lately. How long 
do you reckon you was adrift ? Wasn’t nobody 
else saved but you five ? ” 

We returned short answers to these and other 
questions as we accompanied him to the house we 
were to occupy. 

We found it a larger building than the one we 


Passing the Word 159 

had left. It was divided into three compartments, 
screened off from each other by cocoanut matting. 
We ascertained subsequently that it had been 
secured for our accommodation by the simple 
expedient of kicking out its legitimate Kanaka 
proprietors. 

Here you are, all snug and comfortable. I’ll 
^ be round an hour or two after sun-up, to show you 
how to get your own breakfast, and interjooce you 
to the other whites. They’re curious to make 
yer acquaintance, and you’ve got to thank me for 
keepin’ of ’em off to-day. I knowed what you 
wanted — water, grub, and sleep, not company. 
I’ve been a sur-viver myself. Howsumever, most 
of ’em come and had a good look at you while 
you was asleep.” 

We slept till the sun was high next day. We 
might have slept till it sank and rose again, but 
for Davy Jones’s insistence in shaking us into 
wakefulness. 

Under his guidance we made further acquaint- 
ance with the island and its inhabitants. 

The island itself was what I have called it : it 
was an earthly Paradise. Springs of clear water 
bubbled in the midst of greenest verdure. Spread- 
ing trees cast circles of grateful shadow ; vege- 
tables and luscious fruits abounded. 

The more we saw the .more we marvelled at 
the wondrous beauty of the scenes that met our 
gaze at every turn. Nature had been prodigal 


i6o Friend or Fortune 

in gifts of all her good things to this favored isle 
of the southern seas. 

But alas! she had spread her pearls before 
swine. The natives, quiet and inoffensive as they 
seemed, were only a few stages removed from 
their original savagery. The good lessons they 
had learned from missionaries, who occasionally 
visited them, were worse than neutralized by the 
example of the white men resident amongst them. 
English and French alike, they were a cut-throat 
gang. 

Mixing with them after our partial inspection 
of the island they lived in, I could not help being 
reminded of good Bishop Heber’s words in refer- 
ence to scenes — 


“ Where ev’ry prospect pleases, 

And only man is vile.” 

In the course of a few days we thoroughly 
understood the position of affairs between the 
Frenchmen and the other white men. 

Jones had stated that position accurately 
enough. The French were arrogant. Their 
leader, Jules Ferdinand — a handsome, graceful 
but graceless scoundrel whom, on learning his 
name, we identified as the “ Jooles Ferdernong ” 
of old Davy’s narrative — assumed the airs of a 
Governor-General. He was particularly bump- 
tious just now, owing to the recent visit of the 


Passing the Word i6i 

R^puhlique, We were told that her visits always 
confirmed the French in their view that the island 
belonged to their nation, and always increased 
their irritating assertiveness, as a natural conse- 
quence. 

Harry, Pooley, and I — with, of course, Jacobs 
— were taken fully and freely into the counsels of 
the English party, with whom were the few Amer- 
icans. Their confidence was forced upon us. 
Considering their number and unanimity we 
ceased to wonder at the fearlessness with which 
Davy Jones had told us of the pending “ resur- 
rection.” What could we do against so many ? 

Our acquiescence in their plans was taken for 
granted, though we noticed that for the first day 
or two strict, though quiet, precautions were 
taken to prevent us from mingling alone with the 
“ other side.” This was all the easier to prevent 
in consequence of the circumstance that the two 
“ colonies ” occupied separate quarters ; the 
dwelling which had been handed over to us was 
in the rear of the English quarters, through which 
we had to pass to reach the French quarters. 
But it seemed to us that nobody really suspected 
us but Jacobs, whose adhesion to the scheme in 
hand appeared to be beyond question genuine. 
He had assured himself that his precious carcase 
would be in little danger, and had been promised 
both the native wife and the house of one of the 
monsoos ” as soon as ‘‘ the job was over.” 

II 


i 62 


Friend or Fortune 


The Frenchmen had the best houses and the 
prettiest wives, and a general distribution of both 
was to take place among the victors after the 
resurrection ” had been brought to a successful 
termination. 

Very little notice was taken of the padre. It 
soon became understood that he would do what 
Harry, Pooley, and I told him to do, but that in 
other respects he was a nonentity. 

Almost every one of the whites — French, Eng- 
lish, and American — had a weapon of some 
sort : either a war weapon of native fashion- 
ing, or a European arm of even more formi- 
dable capacities. The French being quite as 
well off in this respect as the insurrectionists — 
better, for they had some quick-firing rifles of 
modern design, doubtless obtained through their 
men-o’-war compatriots — and being much more 
numerous, the great idea amongst the latter con- 
tinued to be that of a night surprise. At last 
the only thing that remained to be settled was 
the actual night and time of the attack. Every- 
body was to be prepared any night at any time. 

The word was to be passed by Davy Jones. 

The meeting at which the arrangements were 
brought to this critical point took place in the 
morning. In the afternoon Harry and Pooley 
and I had a long and earnest consultation be- 
tween ourselves. Most of the points discussed 
we had gone over before many a time. 


Passing the Word 163 

In the first place each one of us was determined 
to have no hand in the dirty work to be done. 
It had been with the utmost difficulty that we 
had prevented ourselves from expressing openly 
our disgust and horror. The chief question was, 
Ought we not now to warn Jules Ferdinand and 
his party? Hitherto we had refrained from seek- 
ing an opportunity of doing so, because of our 
conviction that to let them know of what was 
contemplated against them would simply be to 
give them the signal to forestall the amiable in- 
tentions of their enemies by starting a general 
massacre of the latter on their own account. 
The feud between the two parties was of long 
standing; on several occasions the smouldering 
fires of mutual jealousy and detestation had flared 
out into flame. Life had been taken, and the 
** bad blood” on both sides was now at a feverish 
temperature. Much was said by Davy Jones and 
his confederates about revenge ” — but we saw 
quite sufficient indication that the French con- 
sidered themselves equally entitled to that luxury. 
To warn them might be not to prevent but to 
increase bloodshed. 

What were we do to ? What was it our duty 
to do? 

We had spoken in low and guarded tones all 
the time — we ceased to speak, as a slight sound 
outside fell on our ears. 

A Kanaka entered. He had come from Jones. 


164 Friend or Fortune 

He brought us three revolvers of rather anti- 
quated pattern. Into the barrel of one of them 
a note was stuffed : 

“ The reserrekshun will brake hout twonite. Be reddy.” 

Davy Jones had passed the word ! 


Forewarned, Forearmed 


165 


CHAPTER XXII. 

“ FOREWARNED, FOREARMED ! ” 

W HATEVER we decided to do we must do 
quickly. But we went over almost all 
the old ground again before the suggestion upon 
which we resolved to act occurred to Harry 
Saxon. 

“ I think I see at last what we ought to do,'’ 
he exclaimed. Fm afraid the only chance of 
stopping wholesale murder lies in what I’m going 
to propose. To tell Ferdinand all would be to 
make the look-out worse than ever. But if, when 
the attacking party creep up to the P'rench 
quarters to-night, they find their intended victims 
on the alert instead of sleeping, ten to one they’ll 
funk the whole thing — for the present, at least — 
and make off before they’re perceived. To post- 
pone the outbreak is all we can hope to do. I’m 
afraid ; but that’s a good deal better than doing 
nothing.” 

“ Yes, but how do you propose to give Fer- 
dinand the tip to be on guard to-night, Harry ? ” 
I asked. 


Friend or Fortune 


1 66 

We’ll write him a note — to send it by the 
padre will be the safest way — asking him to meet 
one of us on the beach at sundown. Then which- 
ever of us meets him will say just sufficient, and 
not a word more. If they only show plenty of 
lights at night our plan’s bound to succeed. I 
believe that would be enough.” 

The note had better be in Fwench,” sug- 
gested Pooley. “ In case of its falling into the 
wrong hands by any unlikely accident not one of 
Davy Jones’s lot would then be able to under- 
stand a word of it.” 

“ Good. I fancy you’re the best French scholar. 
Pooley — Ralph and I were always weak on the 
lingo when it came to writing it.” 

A pencil and a piece of paper were found, and 
Pooley wrote the message. It lay on the table 
before us while we explained to the padre what 
we wanted him to do with it. Just as we finished 
giving him his simple instructions the door cloth 
was thrust noiselessly aside, and Tommy Jacobs 
entered. 

How long had he been listening outside? 

“You’ve heard the news,” he said, glancing at 
the pistols. 

“ Yes.” 

“ Them barkers are only to be used if it can’t 
be helped. The job’s got to be done silent, if 
possible.” 

“ So we understood.” 


Forewarned, Forearmed 167 

He picked up the pistols, and examined them. 
He stayed in the room for several minutes, and 
then strolled out. 

“ The padre had better get off at once,” cried 
Harry. “ Where’s that note — it was on the table. 
Have you got it, Rafe ? ” 

No,” replied I. 

‘‘Nor I,” said Pooley. 

The note had gone. 

“That scoundrel Jacobs must have been play- 
' ing the spy on us, and he’s taken the letter to back 
up his report of what he heard. We’re done for ! ” 

I “No, we’re not !” shouted Pooley. “I’ll go 
after him and get it back if I have to kill him for 
! it ! ” — and he rushed into the open, 
j “ Harry,” I said excitedly, “ you’re right. If 
Jacobs has got that note, and overheard us, we’re 
done for. Pooley thrashed him on board ship, 
and you broke his skull in the boat. He’s only 
been waiting his chance to get level with both of 
you. Now he’s got it.” 

We hurried from the hut, but Pooley was out 
of sight, and, taking a wrong direction to follow 
him, it was fully half an hour before he reappeared, 
walking towards us. 

“ I’ve missed him,” he explained hurriedly, 
“but ran right against Ferdinand. I didn’t stop, 
but managed to tell him in passing to be on the 
shore just after the sun went down. I’m certain 
he understood.” 


Friend or Fortune 


1 68 

We continued our search after Jacobs together, 
and came upon him suddenly, considerably later, 
in the midst of some half a dozen of the others, 
with whom was Davy Jones himself. They were 
talking of the coming night’s work, and Jones 
called to us to join them, and gave us his last 
instructions. 

It was evident that Jacobs had said nothing, 
shown nothing. Our fears appeared to be 
groundless, after all. We returned considerably 
relieved. 

It was now late in the afternoon. 

With scarcely an interval of twilight down 
went the sun, and the shadows of the tropical 
night fell on all the island. 

Harry sallied out to keep the appointment that 
Pooley had made with Jules Ferdinand. Sooner 
than we expected he came back. 

“ It’s a funny thing,” he said, ‘‘ and I can’t 
make it out. Ferdinand professes that he can’t 
understand me, but he keeps on saying, ‘ All to 
come — one, two, t’ree, four — t’ree young, one old 
nan — all to come. Please all to come.’ It’s 
plain enough what he means, but why does he 
mean it ? ” 

Pooley and I shared Harry’s perplexity — I 
might say his misgivings — but we all came to the 
same conclusion that there was nothing for it but 
to comply with the Frenchman’s request. 

Accordingly, taking the padre with us, we turned 


Forewarned, Forearmed 169 

out in company as though going for a stroll in 
the cool of the evening. 

“ But I’m afwaid there’s more in this than 
meets the optic,” was the opinion expressed by 
Pooley more than once. 

Arrived on the lonely beach, we found Jules 
Ferdinand still waiting at the secluded spot 
which had been selected for the rendezvous. 
Greeting us with native elegance and politeness, 
he slightly drew us off, so that our backs were 
turned to the dark fringe of wood that skirted 
the upper sands. 

The next moment each one of us was gripped 
by strong hands from behind. Before we could 
turn our mouths were gagged, our arms were 
strapped close to our sides, and our legs fettered 
with rope below the knees. 

All this was done with almost incredible rapid- 
ity. Speechless and helpless we stood sur- 
rounded by a knot of Frenchmen — all of whom 
save Ferdinand must have sprung upon us from 
the darkness of the thicket. 

‘‘Gentlemen,” said Jules Ferdinand, “we t’ank 
you for your intentions so considerate. But al- 
ready we know not a leetle but all of it. We are 
told of all of it by your Monsieur Tommee 
Ja-cob ! ” 

No wonder Jacobs had not betrayed us to the 
men he had sold to the French. He had a deeper 


Friend or Fortune 


170 

game than that to play. He had made his own 
terms with Ferdinand, and — as we gathered after- 
wards — they were stiff ones. 

We never had any doubt but that the treat- 
ment meted out to us was inspired by his instiga- 
tion, though probably the natural suspiciousness 
of the French character had a good deal to do 
with it. Still gagged and bound, we were carried 
off by a devious route (to avoid falling in with 
any of our countrymen) to the dwelling of Jules 
Ferdinand — the building from which the tricolor 
floated all day long. Here our mouths were un- 
gagged and our limbs unbound, but — 

‘‘You are prisonaires,” said Ferdinand ; “you 
have told us so leetle — you have only say ‘ go not 
to sleep to-night ; burn lights to-night ’ ; while 
Tommee Jacob, he have told us all. And also he 
has said not to trust you — that you are a blind, a 
trap. Here you are safe ; you can do no harm. 
But if we had not brought you, if we had left you 
for Davee Jones, then Davee Jones would have 
made you fight us, whether your stomachs big 
for fight or vare leetle. Much better, then, that 
you are here. 

“ I shall tell you,” he went on pleasantly, “ what 
will happen — happen to-night. We show no 
lights, not a leetle glimmer. We are go-to-bed ; 
we are sleeping. Ha! ha! we are sleeping fast 
with eyes all wide open. Presently Davee Jones 
and all his rascal English but you come creep, 


Forewarned, Forearmed 171 

creep, creeping up — right up here. Tommee 
Jacob first show dem just where best to come, 
where French houses all close togeddar, * dis 
best place ’ he say. But himself, he run back. 
They come. We are ready — ha ! ha! ha 1 we are 
quite ready. Every Frenchman ready at door- 
I way. Rifles, pistols, all ready too. They come 
: soft, but we hear, for we are listening — we see, 
for we are looking. I watch for the grand 
I moment. It makes itself to arrive. I give a 
I sound. It is the sign — ‘shoot! shoot! shoot!’ 
j One volley, two volley, t’ree volley — ah ! it is 
I grand; it is beautiful. Full up to de top with 
dead Englishmen shall be what you call de locker 
I of Davee Jones ! ” 

j More powerless for peace than ever, we could 
do now absolutely nothing. Our one move had 
j been made, and had proved a failure. What 
j must be must be. 

! Presently Jules Ferdinand was joined by several 
of his neighbors. It was arranged between them 
I that at least three Frenchmen should occupy each 
doorway, so that the volleys might be more con- 
centrated, if, as was hoped, “ the enemy ” came 
up in close order. 

In silence and in darkness remained the French 
settlement till half the night had passed away. 
We began to think that our absence had aroused 
suspicion, and to hope that the attack would not 
be made, after all. But suddenly a short, sharp. 


172 


Friend or Fortune 


loud hiss, heard as distinctly in the still air as a 
cry would have been, told that the moment for 
action had arrived. 

Jules Ferdinand had given the signal to open 
fire! 


Jacobs’ Chance 


173 


CHAPTER XXIII. 

JACOBS’ CHANCE. 

A VOLLEY — a second volley — the third. 

A babel of yells, screams, curses, oaths, 
and groans proclaimed that the French had not 
aimed at the approaching dark and confused body 
of men without hitting some of them. All the 
return fire that was attempted was in the way of 
a few straggling shots which hit nobody, but 
which were quickly enough replied to. 

Then all was over, for the French had no idea 
of leaving the shelter of their houses and making 
a sortie. They did not even make any move to 
I ascertain, by an examination of the ground, how 
much damage they had probably inflicted. As 
I for the attackers, nothing more was seen or heard 
I of them — no further alarm disturbed the stillness 
i of the night. Finding that their intended victims 
had been by some means forewarned, and had 
I taken good care to be forearmed, they had evi- 
dently abandoned their attempt for the present, 
beating a precipitate retreat. 


174 


Friend or Fortune 


To do them justice, they carried away both 
their dead and wounded with them. 

As many of the jubilant Frenchmen as could 
get into Ferdinand’s house foregathered there — 
and how they talked, how they gesticulated ! 
And how they exaggerated ! 

^‘Waterloo is avenged,” muttered Harry in a 
low voice, for the visitors had overflowed into the 
inner apartment to which we had been conducted 
before the commencement of the brief and un- 
equal conflict. 

We have been ear-witnesses to the Sedan of 
Gweat Bwitain,” was Pooley’s comment. 

The padre — as usual — said nothing. At the 
first sound of the firing he had sprung to his feet, 
betraying an unwonted agitation, which we had 
had some little difficulty in calming. It was not, 
indeed, till the firing had altogether ceased that 
he sank back into his usual condition of childlike 
placidity. 

‘‘Never mind about Waterloo and Sedan,” said 
I; “what I’m thinking about is just this — what 
are these jabbering Frenchmen going to do with 
us?” 

“ They’re excited enough to do anything,” ob- 
served Harry. 

“ They’re wapidly losing contwol of them- 
selves.” 

Pooley was quite right. Ferdinand had been 
doing honor to the occasion by dispensing a 


Jacobs’ Chance 


I7S 

horrible drink of Kanaka concoction with a free 
hand ; and the effects of his hospitality were 
becoming very apparent. 

Nobody thought of lying down or of taking 
any rest. The breaking of the dawn found them 
carousing still, and talking more quickly than 
ever — though less coherently. 

At last there came a pause in the hubbub : 
for several minutes the drinking went on in almost 
complete silence. 

When the talk began again, we were the sub- 
jects of it. Most of it going on in the next 
room, we heard little, but what we did hear 
was the reverse of reassuring. 

Harry stood nearest to the hangings that di- 
vided the two rooms, listening. 

Are they going to kill us, Harry ? ” I whis- 
pered. 

He beckoned me to keep silence. Presently 
he came nearer. 

The general view seems to be in favor of 
simply kicking us out. They might just as well 
kill us themselves ; for if they turn us out how 
can we hide from that old scoundrel Jones, and 
what sort of explanation would satisfy him ? 
We were absent last night, and somebody had 
told the French all about the plans of his pre- 
cious insurrection. Nothing will make him believe 
that we didn’t give him away: and he’ll make 
short work of us.” 


Friend or Fortune 


176 

Some ominous words here fell on our ears from 
the adjoining apartment ; we recognized the voice 
of Jules Ferdinand. It was quite clear that he 
bore us no gratitude for the warning we had 
given him last night. The full information previ- 
ously given him by Jacobs had rendered our hint 
of danger valueless, and Jacobs had satisfied him 
that we had only been trying to play a double 
game, and were not to be trusted. 

The deliberations as to our fate were cut short 
by an extraordinary and unexpected occurrence. 

Loud shouts from outside penetrated the house. 
Cries of alarm rose from the French quarters. 
We rushed into the larger front room to find 
Ferdinand and all his companions there seizing 
their arms again. The matting was flung back 
from the doorway, and a curious sight presented 
itself. 

Some five hundred yards off stood a crowd of 
trembling Kanakas — men, women, and children. 
Behind them, towering inches above the tallest of 
them, but ready to duck his head so as to avail 
himself of the shelter of their bodies at the first 
sign of danger, stood the redoubtable Davy 
Jones, fluttering, as a flag of truce, a shirt that 
had once been white. 

He was yelling Truce! a truce, a truce! ” 
with all his might. He had evidently come to 
open negotiations of some sort, and was driving 
the mob of natives before him as a bodyguard 


Jacobs’ Chance 


177 

to receive the first attentions of the enemy, and 
to serve as a buttress against their bullets in case 
his shirt was not respected. 

“ A truce, a truce ! ” 

Truce? ” roared Ferdinand. 

‘‘Yus. I says it with my tongue, and I says 
it in my ’eart. Have you got four English chaps 
there what have deserted from us?” 

“ What if we have ? ” 

“ But have yer ? ” 

“ Yes, we have. ” 

“ Then give ’em up. Give ’em up, and I take 
my hoath I’ll do two things. I’ll hang them four 
chaps, and I’ll stop the resurrection. I says it 
with my tongue, and I says it in my ’eart ! ” 

A shouted conversation was carried on for 
several minutes. Ferdinand wanted to impose 
various conditions to our surrender, but the other 
I would not hear of them. 

“ My fellows won’t agree to nothing else,” he 
yelled. “ But you give them chaps up, and we 
swear we’ll hang ’em, and then take peaceable the 
licking you give us last night.” 

“You shall hang dem where we can see de 
fun?” asked a Frenchman of a sportive turn of 
mind. 

Jones looked about him. 

“Yus,” he answered pointing to a convenient 
tree. 

“ Rafe — Pooley,” whispered Harry, “ it’s all 
12 


178 Friend or Fortune 

up. Poor old padre ! — but we can’t save him 
any more than we can save ourselves. There’s 
one thing that we can do, however.” 

‘‘What’s that?” 

“We can make a rush of it, and get at Jones 
while he stands there by himself. The natives 
will scatter like chaff, and if I can only get at 
Jones before the others come up and join him, 
I don’t think ^^’11 see the hanging.” » 

Pooley and I held our breath. 

“ What do you say ? Shall we do it ? ” 

“ Yes,” we replied, in low, firm tones, just as 
Ferdinand cried — 

“ All right. You can have dem ! ” 

“ Then now I Take the padre’s arm on your 
side, Rafe. Now I ” 

We made the dash. The volatile Frenchmen 
laughed loudly as the scared natives scattered 
left and right. 

But we were too late to reach Davy Jones by 
himself. Already he had signalled to his rear — 
and we only ran into the arms of a score of his 
gang who had hurried up to join him. He shouted 
to Ferdinand something to the effect that the 
“ court-martial ” wouldn’t last long, and amidst 
guffaws from both sides we were led away. The 
French seemed to be entering into the “fun” of 
the gruesome entertainment promised and already 
begun, and to be quite willing to suspend hostili- 
ties, 


Jacobs’ Chance 


179 


A ring was formed in the centre of the English 
quarter. Davy Jones took his seat in the middle, 
and we were stood up in front of him. Of all the 
angry faces that glared upon us none was quite so 
cruel as the face of Jacobs, who stood behind the 
one chair in the middle of the ring. 

Jones delivered an address in his best style. 

What happened last night, maties,” he said, 

is knowed by all of us. 

A number of oaths — chiefly from men whose 
rough bandages showed that they had been 
wounded — expressed every sympathy with this 
preamble. 

^‘Likewise it is knowed who turned traitors. 
They stands before us. But as there ain’t nothin’ 
like going through a job of this sort in a stric’ 
perfessional way, I calls on Tommy Jacobs for to 
give evidence.” 

I saw a gleam of hope. Jacobs would report 
the conversation he had overheard, he would pro- 
duce the note he had picked up. But how he 
would get over the question “ Why did you not 
reveal all this in time to prevent the disastrous 
attack that was made? ” 

Alas! he must have got over the difficulty 
already somehow, for it was certain that whatever 
he was going to say now he had said before. 

His variation of truth was artful enough. It 
amounted to a suppression of the real facts alto- 
gether. 


i8o . Friend or Fortune 

“ What I said to some of you, maties, as soon 
as it flashed upon me, I say again now formal to 
all. This here is my evidence. 

‘‘In case of meeting any Frenchies out late last 
night as might have give a alarm, we strolled out 
mostly separate, forming gradual into two parties. 
I led one party, and Boss Jones here led the other 
one. When them two parties joined, one coming 
one way and the other one another way, the pris- 
oners was missing. I’d calculated they was with 
Boss Jones, and Boss Jones he calculated as they 
was with me. They wasn’t with either. But this 
didn’t come out till we compared notes afterwards, 
when we found as neither of us hadn’t picked ’em 
up. Being in the dark, and all anxious to get on 
the job, we didn’t count heads or answer names. 
We got at our work at once — and we all know 
what happened.” 

Again there was a sympathetic murmur of 
choice oaths. Jacobs proceeded, speaking more 
rapidly and apparently under greater excitement : 

“ Who could it be who betrayed us except the 
fellows who wasn’t with us? Who they was as 
wasn’t with us we soon found out.” 

“ By comparing of notes as aforesaid,” put in 
Davy Jones with a presidential air. 

“ Something flashed upon me like lightning that 
I hadn’t thought of at the time. It was this. 
Soon after sundown yesterday I come on Fer- 
dinand skulking about on the beach. T en minutes 


Jacobs^ Chance 


i8i 

afterwards I spotted these four prisoners allwalk- 
, ing together in the direction of the beach, though 
1 it didn’t strike me then where they might be go- 
ing. But it struck me sharp enough when the 
question was : * Who are the traitors?' 

“ I was down on the shore with the first streak 
, o’ light this morning. Near a lot o’ footprints 
above the tidemark I picked up this note, as I say 
must have been wrote by the prisoners to Jules 
Ferdinand, who must have dropped it unawares. 
I say they wrote to him, met him, told him, and 
j went with him to where we’ve just brought ’em 
I from. And I say we’ve got evidence enough to 
; hang forty men, let alone a stripling, two boys, 
I and a looney.” 

I Simultaneously Harry, Pooley, and I sprang 
for the coward who was taking our lives away by 
j putting his own doings upon our shoulders. But 
stronger hands than ours were clapped upon us. 
We were as helpless as birds in the snare of the 
fowler. 

[ Jacobs’ motives were easy to understand. He 
had the double opportunity of diverting all danger 
[ of suspicion being attracted in his own direction, 
and of paying off old scores at the same time. 

His chance had come, and he was taking it. 


i 82 


Friend or Fortune 


CHAPTER XXIV. 

SENTENCED TO DEATH, 
r me that there letter,” said Davy Jones. 



Vjr “ This here dockyment,” he went on, 
spreading out the note with both hands, is wrote 
in French. Now there ain’t one of us as can read 
it all through, or a ’arf through, or a quarter 
through. But ’most every one of us can under- 
stand a word here or a word there — there’s about 
a word apiece. My word is ‘ voo ’ : I know that 
French word intimate. The prisoners have spelt 
it wrong with a ‘ u ’ and a ‘ s ’ — it ought to be 
wrote with a ‘ v ’ and a ‘ o ’ and a ‘ o.’ But they 
can’t get over me with a dodge like that. Voo is 
the word they meant, and it stands for j/ou. And 
here’s the word just before it — likewise spelt 
wrong. This here’s Jim Mason’s word. It’s 
vooley, and means will; vooley vous, will you ? 
Follering close on is a word spelt evident so re- 
markable wrong that it can’t be spoke, but Joe 
Slutch he says it siggerfies meet, I think this here 
was your word, Joe ? ” 


Sentenced to Death 183 

Joe modestly admitted that it was. 

“ Very good. Well, one word at a time, we’ve 
pieced this dockyment together, and it’s un- 
doubted a traitery appointment. Now, who 
wrote it ? ” 

“ I did,” said Pooley. 

We wrote it,” said Harry quickly. 

“ Don’t you interrupt me in my summin’ up,” 
roared the president savagely. “ It will be over 
soon enough — I’m a-summin’ up dead agin you. 
But you heard that, mates ? — you heard these two 
prisoners own up that they wrote this here French 
dockyment ? ” 

“ Of course we did,” replied a number of angry 
voices. 

“ What’s the use of all this evidence ? ” de- 
manded the fellow who had been appealed to as 
Joe Slutch. “ Hang ’em ! ” 

Hang ’em ! ” chorused all the crowd. 

“ There’s been too much jaw already,” de- 
clared somebody. “ What’s the good of all this 
summin’ up ? We’ve had enough of it.” 

Davy Jones looked very grieved, but his at- 
tempted remonstrances at the cutting short of 
the exercise of his judicial functions were drowned 
in the terrible cry, taken up again by everybody, 
and swelling higher and higher — “ Hang them ! 
Hang them ! ” 

“ Listen ! ” 

Above all the din rang Harry Saxon’s voice. 


184 Friend or Fortune 

“ Listen ! ” 

A silence, more startling than all their shouts, 
fell upon the murderous mob. 

“ We know that nothing we can say will avail 
to save us from our fate ; so on that score we 
will say nothing.” 

Nothing ! ” said Pooley. 

“ Nothing ! ” said I, trying to speak as firmly 
as he and Harry spoke. 

“ But the man on whose head lies the blood- 
shed of last night — the man who sold you at his 
own price, and who will sell you again if he can 
get a price again — stands there ! ” and, without a 
quiver or a shake, Harry’s hand pointed straight 
at our chief accuser. 

Jacobs faced the perhaps expected charge 
boldly. 

“Is there a man here who’s got a word to say 
agin me?” 

“No, Jacobs! No, no!” 

“ Then let’s go on with the hanging. It’s time 
such lying tongues was stopped.” 

Again a yell of acclamation — again the fierce, 
hoarse cry of “ Hang them ! Hang them ! ” But 
again, with the same word and the same gesture, 
brave-hearted, lion-hearted Harry Saxon imposed 
the same sudden silence. 

This time his voice faltered, and all the look of 
defiance died from his face — the defiance that just 
before had dared death so dauntlessly. His 


Sentenced to Death 


185 

hands trembled a little as, standing between 
Pooley and myself, he first touched us and then 
moved close to the padre and put them upon 
him lovingly. 

“We don’t ask anything for ourselves — we 
know you mean to do your worst. But spare 
this old man — this poor old man ! In whatever 
you think we did, you know that he could have 
had no wilful share, either in planning or execut- 
ing, either in thought or deed. Spare him — 
don’t harm him! You know his affliction. God 
has laid his hand upon him — keep your hands 
off!” 

“ No ! ” said the padre. 

It was so seldom he spoke at all that we mar- 
velled to hear him now — and marvelled more 
greatly at what he said, in the low, quiet tones we 
had never known to vary. 

“ No — what they do to you let them do to me. 
I know — I understand. You have been kind to 
me, you have been good to me — you, and you, 
and you. You have saved me before — you would 
save me now. But no ! When they kill you let 
them kill me. It will be easier to die with you 
than to live without you — I am so strange, so 
helpless. Till now, I had forgotten what death 
meant — but now I understand, I know. And 
perhaps afterwards — when death is over — ^perhaps 
afterwards I shall learn again who I am — ^leam 
again all I have lost.” 


Friend or Fortune 


i86 

The burst of inhuman laughter, the inhuman 
jeers, that showed his placid voice had reached 
the inhuman ears of the men who now hemmed us 
closely in had an effect upon Harry which nothing 
else had had. They moved him as no sense of j 
his own impending fate had moved him. He i 
gave one despairing, wandering look into the | 
cruel, evil, pitiless, mocking faces around him — 
and broke down sobbing as never had I known j 
him to in all the close intimacy of our more than 
friendship. 

With dry but distressed and distressing face, j 
the padre tried to comfort him. 

It was more than we could bear — Pooley and I 
turned our heads, and gulped down our own great | 
sobs. i 

Well, now, if the old gennelman would really 
like to die so’s to learn who he is, I say — a-sayin’ | 
of it with my tongue and in my ’eart — as it | 
wouldn’t be kind for to stand in his way. But I 1 
leave it to you, mates, I leave it to you. Shall | 
he croak or not? Of course, if we don’t hang | 
him with the others it’ll sort of throw us out in 
our calculations. We cert’n’ly reckoned on the || 
four of ’em. And to my way of thinkin’,” con- j 
eluded Jones, with the air of a connoisseur, “ four j 
of ’em would make a neater job of it than three, j 
Strung up nice and tidy, four, as is a even number, j 
would look prettier than three, as is a odd num- ^ 
ber/^ 


Sentenced to Death 


187 


The four — the four ; hang the four ! ” 

Four lengths of rope were brought and made 
ready. With the ends left trailing on the ground 
four nooses were thrown around our necks. 


Friend or Fortune 


1 88 


CHAPTER XXV. 

“ time’s up ! ” 

I FEEL quite certain that David Jones had 
only one motive in staying the rush that 
would have carried us with it to instant execu- 
tion. That motive was as utterly cruel as it 
was entirely selfish. Our torture was a joy to 
him — so he wanted to prolong both for a little 
while. 

“ Not quite so fast, mates,” he cried ; “ slow up 
for half a jiffy. What I says is, let’s give ’em a 
quarter of a hour.” 

“What for? ” demanded Jacobs, who evidently 
grudged us even this brief respite. 

“ Yes, what for? ” echoed other voices. 

“Just for ’em to take a last look round like on 
this here beautiful world as they’re about for to 
say adoo to. Now that it’s settled what we’re 
a-going to do with ’em, I says with my tongue 
and says in my ’eart, let’s do it, but do it merciful. 
Give ’em a quarter of a hour for any such private 
dewotions as they may care to go in for. I was 
brought up strict religious myself, and I’ve got a 


Time’s Up 189 

touch of the weakness left. I say, give ’em a 
quarter of a hour, just fifteen minutes by my 
watch, for a last look round, and a last think, and 
some last dewotions — if dewotions is considered 
agreeable by ’em.” 

He had his way in spite of Jacobs’ angry pro- 
testations. We were to die in a quarter of an 
hour. We all tried to bear ourselves as bravely 
as we could. In face of the death to which every 
rapid moment brought us nearer, and in face of 
the men who had doomed us to that death, we 
tried not to show the white feather of fear. 

Least moved of the four was the padre, though 
I his face bore the old troubled look that was as- 
sociated with all his puzzled attempts to think. 

As for me, though the present seemed strangely 
vivid — though I noted with exaggerated interest, 
so to speak, such little things as the flight of a 
brilliantly feathered bird, the flitting of a winged 
insect from one gaudy flower to another, the 
changing position of a bank of white clouds that 
were drifting across the blue sky — though I even 
tried to count the colors of the bird’s plumage, 
and wondered how it was that the busy insect 
didn’t grow tired, and fashioned in fancy the 
white clouds in the blue sky into more fantastic 
shapes — yet all the while I was living the past 
over again. My thoughts went back to the days 
of my earliest recollection. More clearly than I 
had ever seen them since they were hidden from 


Friend or Fortune 


190 

eyes of flesh forever, I recalled the faces of my 
dead father, my dead mother. Things and peo- 
ple, sights and sounds, which had been familiar 
only in my childish experience I saw and heard 
again. I thought of almost infant playmates, 
and wondered — but as we wonder in dreams — 
where they were now. 

And as these long-forgotten memories revived, 
it all seemed not as though the past had come 
back to me, but as though I had gone back to 
the past, and was living there still — though I 
noticed that there were just three dried clots of 
blood, two of them larger than the third one, on 
the dirty hand of David Jones, as he took out his 
watch and looked at it. 

“ Five minutes ! ” 

I was living at Beachy Bay again now. The 
actual sound of the harsh voice of Dr. Consett 
ordering me five hundred lines would scarcely 
have surprised me. 

It was awfully kind of Curly Locks to conduct 
that auction in the Big Dormitory on such a 
rummy system of bidding, and then to offer to 
advance the fellows the money to pay for what 
they had bought, because they were all hard up. 
And what a brick he was about the change of 
that five-pound note last night ! 

Splendid times on Bay Island — eh, Harry ? 
What specimens you find there for your museum 
under the bed ! 


Time’s Up 191 

Dear old Dan Runciman, and stout-hearted 
young Joe — what golden hearts they’ve got 
within, Harry, though they’re so rough and 
weather-beaten without — white kernels in brown 
shells. How kind, how generous, how sympa- 
thetic, both of them ! “ Their home, our home,” 

Harry — now that this “ Message from the Sea ” 
has spelt our fate without our having to wait any 
longer. 

Seven thousand a year, Harry ! You’ll be a 
country gentleman — the Squire of Malpas — and 
I dare say a member of Parliament. God bless 
you, old fellow — always my chum, Harry, always 
my chum. 

What ! they ask me where you are ? They 
say that I drowned you, Harry ? They say that 
I murdered you, because I’ve come back without 
you ? Don’t they know I would have died to 
save you, Harry ? 

You can’t say it again, Consett — you can’t say 
it again while I hold your throat like this. 

Any more news, Dan ? Has the tide washed 
up — any more news, Joe ? 

I must face the world by myself now — face it 
with Dan Runciman’s money: his and Joe’s, I 
suppose — the money that Dan slipped into my 
pocket when he brushed off the earwig. 

A strange meeting with a strange fellow — but 
I like you, Pooley. You look like a masher,” 
but I think you’re a man. Maybe it’s a good 


192 


Friend or Fortune 


thing for us to be reminded sometimes that a 
chap isn’t necessarily a milksop because he dresses 
well, or a coward because he puts on a collar. 
Even a hero may occasionally wear a high hat. 
Look out, Pooley — there’s a train ahead of us 
. . . we’re . . . 

“ Ten minutes ! ” 

What was the dead man’s news, Pooley? ‘‘Are 
you the other ? ” he said. “ If you’re the two. I’ve 
brought you news of . . .” And then he died. 

Yes, we’ll go to the Land of Gold together. 

You’ve spoken very plainly, Pooley, and in 
your own manner — but it’s quite true. I have 
left under a cloud — left foolishly. The cloud will 
never be lifted from my head now, unless I find 
Harry and go back with him. When we’ve made 
our fortunes I shall spend all mine in finding him. 
But no, he’s drowned : I shall never see him 
again. 

Poor old padre ! We’ll look after him. Captain 
Arkwright. 

I know he deserved it, Pooley, but I almost 
wish you hadn’t given Jacobs such a thrashing. 
There’s a threat in his eyes every time he looks 
at you. 

Harry’s face, Harry’s voice, Harry’s hand ! 
What a leap, Harry — what a leap to me out of 
the white night ! 

Now we’re all three together again — four of us 
now, for we’ve adopted a father. 


Time’s Up 193 

We’re homeward bound — but Jacobs is on 
board. 

The Dusky Bride is sinking — row for the 
drowning padre . . . Jacobs is conscious again, 
Harry ; but he’ll never forgive that blow. He’ll 
only wait for his chance, and when it comes 
he'll . . . 

God ! I’m in the dead past no longer, but in 
the living awful present, and about to be plunged 
into the unknown future. Jacobs has had his 
chance and taken it, against all of us, for this 
time it is his voice, loud and exultant — 

“ Time's up !" 

13 


194 


Friend or Fortune 


CHAPTER XXVI. 

THE END OF THE INSURRECTION. 

I GRASPED Harry’s hand, then Pooley’s, 
then the padre’s — then Harry’s again. 

I was glad that the last thing I might touch on 
earth should be the hand of Harry Saxon. 

“ As master of these here ceremonies,” said old 
Jones, “ I now gives the word : the percession will 
move on to them four ’andy trees close together 
between here and the quarters o’ them cussed 
monsoos. We promised ’em they should see the 
show, and we’ll keep our word with ’em in that 
respeck, because we’re a-going to break our word 
with ’em in another respeck. We none of us 
never meant to keep it in regard to this other 
respeck. ‘ Truce I ” says I — with my tongue and 
in my ’eart — ‘ Truce — give us up them four and 
we’ll hang ’em — likewise the resurrection shall be 
stopped.’ Now, as to the bangin’, we’re just 
about for to keep our word all correck. But as 
to the resurrection, we’re a-going for to break it — 
all correck equal, for I only says that part with 
my tongue, and not in my ’eart. The resurrection 


The End of the Insurrection. 195 

I wasn’t stopped, and it ain’t stopped, and it ain’t 
, a-going to be stopped. 

“ Whatever you four wretched conwicks ’as 
done, you ain’t succeeded, for the resurrection 
ain’t stopped. Just think o’ these here words o’ 

! mine as your legs is a-kickin’ in the air free, with 
nothink for to tread on. My words is : the resur- 
rection ain’t stopped ! * We tried to stop the 

resurrection,’ thinks you — when you ain’t got no 
wind for to speak it with — ^ we tried to stop the 
resurrection, but it ain’t stopped. So we’re a-dyin’ 
for nothink, after all.’ 

We’ve laid fresh plans so artful that there 
won’t be no mistake next time. 

‘‘ The funeral percession will now wake up, and 
start gay. Tom Jacobs, you come here and walk 
alongside o* me : you and me is chief mourners. 
But follerers ts allowed in this here family on this 
here festive occasion — and the more the merrier. 
So fall in, mates, behind me and Jacobs, and away 
we go.” 

The mock procession ” had moved forward 
scarcely half a dozen yards when he halted it to 
give vent to a ghastly joke, the thought of which 
had, I suppose, just occurred to him. 

There’s a apology as we ought to make to 
these here mis’rable prisoners — I mean conwicks. 
We ain’t got no music. If there was only a band 
on the Yighland, we’d turn it out with pleasure 
for to tootle the Dead March for ’em. The 


Friend or Fortune 


196 

musical honners must kindly be took by the 
mis’rable conwicks for granted.” 

We paid little heed — no heed — to the scoffing 
laughter and the renewed jeers of the murderous 
rabble. All that we had to care about now was to 
try to make our peace with God during the few 
remaining minutes we had to live. 

Our arrival at the selected spot — in full view of 
the French quarters, but out of range from it for 
all the French firearms excepting their rifles — was 
greeted with an ironical cheer from Ferdinand’s 
desperadoes. 

Davy Jones and several others looked very 
uneasy. 

“ I don’t like being in such close quarters with 
the monsoos after last night,” said Jones, “ for all 
that there flag of truce of ours. Hurry up.” 

Jacobs walked closely up to Harry. His hands 
were on the very noose to tighten it when a 
sound from seaward woke every slumbering echo 
on Sunny Island. 

The sound that came from the sea was the 
boom of a ship’s gun. 

With an oath which I dare not repeat — an oath 
so awful that I shudder to think of it — Davy 
Jones cried — 

“ The resurrection is stopped — the Repub-lick- 
yous come back ! ” 

The frantic cheering that broke from the throats 
of the French told that they too knew — quickly 


The End of the Insurrection 197 

enough — the meaning of that single cannon-boom. 
Their man-o'-war had returned ; she was just off 
the coast. 

Still with frantic cheers they rushed pell-mell 
for the beach. 

The way they took soon hid them from view. 
Long, tangled grasses, huge flowers on tall, thick 
stems, and presently closely growing trees, con- 
cealed the scampering crowd, though we heard 
them shouting still. 

“ Quick — back all to our houses ! ” cried Jones. 
“ We’re safer there.” 

No,” said Jacobs savagely ; we came for the 
hanging, and we’ll carry it through.” 

“No; I’m off, at all events. The French are ex- 
cited out o’ reason, and I know ’em. Didn’t you 
notice they carried some o’ their guns with ’em ? ” 

“ Bah ! ” — and again he grasped the rope round 
Harry’s neck with one hand, and with the other 
that round Pooley’s. 

Tom Jacobs never spoke again. From the 
grass, the tall flowers, from the sides of the thick 
trees, spat tiny tongues of flame, came little puffs 
of smoke. 

Like Jacobs, the French had seen a chance ; 
like Jacobs, they had taken it ; for every man of 
them ft would seem, who carried gun or rifle had 
fired into the unguarded, disconcerted group of 
men who, equally treacherous, had attacked them 
in the secrecy of darkness the night before. 


Friend or Fortune 


198 

The shots told home. 

Without a cry or groan, a moan or sigh, Tom 
Jacobs dropped down dead at the very feet of 
Harry and of Pooley. Had they not instinct- 
ively started back, his bleeding body would have 
touched them as it fell. 

Slutch, and three men near him, dropped at the 
same moment. 

The French didn’t stop to reload, but another 
cheer seemed to imply that they had seen the 
effect of their volley before they resumed their 
way. Almost before the smoke had cleared, the 
sound of their voices, yelling still, reached us from 
farther off. 

A strange cry — it was half a scream — from Davy 
Jones riveted our eyes upon him. 

His hands were pressed closely to his head ; but 
he removed them as again he screamed, and then 
blood gushed out from both sides. 

“ Fm done for — done for — done for ! ” he 
shrieked. ** I says it with ” 

He dropped to his knees, then on to the palms 
of his hands. His vacant eyes looked all round. 
With the action of a wounded animal he shook 
his head from side to side. I heard the patter of 
his blood-drops on the petals of the flowers. 

He fell on his face, and for a few moments 
writhed like a stricken snake. Then he was still 
— forever ! 

Only about half the number of his followers 


The End of the Insurrection 199 

remained now on the spot. With the ropes still 
dangling from our necks, we dashed through these 
and gained the shelter that lay behind them, from 
which the French had fired. 

I don’t think we had any clear idea of the direc- 
tion in which we ran, beyond knowing that every 
bound took us farther away alike from our Eng- 
lish foes and our French ones, for the hands of 
both were against us. 

Reaching a point near the beach above that 
part of it which was most familiar to us, we caught 
a sight of the now anchored man-o’-war. A boat 
was pulling from her to the shore, where stood 
all the welcoming Frenchmen, with a larger con- 
gregation of Kanakas. 

Close to us were a few mean-looking dwellings, 
but our hearts rejoiced at their miserable appear- 
ance, for it proved that they were occupied by 
natives. Their situation was so beautiful that 
had they been worth stealing one set of Euro- 
peans or the other would have stolen them long 
ago. Panting for breath, our clothes wet through 
with the perspiration that rolled down our bodies, 
we entered the first we came to. 

And there a poor untaught savage gave us 
shelter from the wrath of our own “ Christian ” 
countrymen. He gave us food and drink, and a 
resting-place — he gave us of the best he had. 

All day long we never stirred outside. When 
night came we went on our knees — the padre 


200 


Friend or Fortune 


seemed to understand the motion, and knelt with 
us. The few words in which we offered up our 
thanks to the Almighty for our escape that day, 
and our prayer for his help to-morrow, were ut- 
tered by Harry. 

Whatever the morrow might bring forth, sore 
would surely be our need for that help still ; for 
we remained hemmed around with peril. 

The padre slept, but Harry, Pooley, and I sat 
up to decide what we would do in the morning. 
At all risks we would leave our present shelter, 
and get on board the French man-o’-war, and lay 
our case before the captain, asking him to carry 
us with him when he sailed away again. Surely 
he would not refuse us. If he did we must do 
what we had thought of doing once or twice be- 
fore. We must make our escape either in our 
own boat of the Dusky Bride or one of the native 
catamarans. Better to take our faint chance of 
being picked up in time, before the water and 
provisions we could carry were exhausted ; or our 
even fainter chance of reaching — in time — some 
other inhabited land ; better either chance, any 
chance, than to remain longer on Sunny Island 
now. 

“ We won’t wait till the morning,” exclaimed 
Harry suddenly. ^‘There’d be more danger then 
of being seen and stopped. We’ll board La 
publique to-night, even if we have to swim fc : it.” 

Excitedly Pooley and I fell in with this idea. 


The End of the Insurrection 201 

, We roused our Kanaka host, and — making him 
I understand easily enough what we wanted — dis- 
1 patched him to bring up a boat, 
j In about half an hour’s time he returned with 
I the good news that a catamaran was in waiting — 
and the tide just ebbing. 

We woke the padre. 

‘‘ Come along, padwe,” said Pooley. It’s all 
wight. Come on.” 

As docilely as a child — without a question, 
without a thought, without the puzzled look that 
showed us when he was trying to think — he rose 
I and followed us. 

We seated him in the catamaran, stepped in 
I ourselves, and the Kanaka paddled away. 

The riding lights of the ship indicated her 
I position clearly, and we shot towards her. 

‘ As we neared her the sentry hailed us — of 
course in French. 

“ Answer him, Pooley.” 

“No; there are too many ‘r’s’ in the Fwench 
language for me, when it comes to speaking it. 
Answer him yourself, Hawwy.” 

So Harry answered the hail, saying that 
“ Friends ” were coming alongside. 

Arrived alongside, the sentry put a few ques- 
tions before we were allowed to mount up on 
deck. As the last of us got aboard he brought 
us all up sharp, and from somewhere behind him 
stepped softly forward Jules Ferdinand — a smile 


202 


Friend or Fortune 


on his sinister, handsome face, a cigarette held 
daintily between his fingers. 

He spoke to us in French. At the words 
“ New Caledonia,” I shivered, for we had all heard 
something of the horrors of that French penal 
settlement. 

Since you speak my language so well ” — with I 
a polite bow — “ permit me to address you in it. 
You are welcome — as prisoners once more. The 
rest of your compatriots are already on board — 
all prisoners, for I have denounced them because 
of the rising. I now go to denounce you with 
them to monsieur the captain, for I will no longer 
have a single Englishman on the island — save 
only the dead ones. 

“You will all be taken together to New Cale- 
donia. Allow me to condole with you that, for 
your own sakes, you, my guests of last night, did 
not insist on being hanged this morning ! ” 


The Last of Sunny Island 203 


CHAPTER XXVII. 

THE LAST OF SUNNY ISLAND. 

R eported to the officer of the watch, we 
were conducted below to join our late 
companions on the island, now our fellow- 
prisoners. Our demand to be taken at once 
before the captain was refused with mock polite- 
ness. 

“ All in good time, messieurs — you shall see 
enough of the captain in the morning.” 

“ But we are English,” began Harry, hotly, 
** and we claim ” 

“Your nationality will not save you,” said the 
petty officer to whom we were speaking. 

“ We’ll see about that.” 

“ In the morning, monsieur.” 

“ Yes, in the morning, if we can’t to-night.” 

“ And in the meantime we pwotest against the 
outwage of our awwest,” put in Pooley. 

With a shrug of his shoulders the Frenchman 
informed us that we were at liberty to protest as 
much as we liked, but not out loud, and left us. 
Our fellow-prisoners were too dejected to take 


204 


Friend or Fortune 


much notice of us. Whatever hopes we had of 
the success of our appeal to the fact of our 
nationality — apart from the fact that we had 
taken no active part in the abortive rising — it was 
obvious that the more ignorant followers of the 
dead David Jones had no hopes for themselves ; 
and certainly we could not help admitting that 
the French were sometimes capable of very high- 
handed proceedings. Two of the men had been 
to New Caledonia, and their account of the life 
led by the convicts there — repeated for our special 
benefit — sounded all the more terrible for being 
whispered. 

Notwithstanding the uncertainty of our fate, 
and the misery of our enforced association with 
our present companions, our fatigue was so great 
that we soon fell asleep, and slept heavily till we 
were aroused in the morning and offered a break- 
fast to which we did every justice. 

An hour or two passed, all of us being in a con- 
dition of anxious expectancy the whole time, 
thinking every moment that we should be paraded 
before the captain. 

At last we were made aware of a great com- 
motion on deck. We heard the shouted orders 
of officers and the trampling of many feet. 

Then came a sound that drowned all other 
sounds — a sound that startled us as the signal- 
gun of La Repuhlique startled all the island 
yesterday. 


The Last of Sunny Island 205 

It was the same sound — the roar of a cannon. 
But this time it was not the French man-o’-war 
that had fired. 

Again the boom — again and again till we had 
counted the reports of twenty-one guns. 

Then silence, broken by more orders shouted 
above us, and the sound of the quick movements 
that followed them. 

Boom ! 

We felt the vibration of the ship as the French- 
man took up the firing — gun after gun till the 
same number was reached. The sentry placed 
over us, hitherto surly, sulky, and silent, could 
contain himself no longer. 

“ An English man-of-de-war has made herself to 
I arrive,” he cried ; we have return her salute ! ” 

' “ An English man-o’-war ? Bravo ! ” — and the 

1 cheer that broke from Harry, Pooley, and myself 
( was taken up by the others, the frantic endeavors 
of the sentry to maintain silence being quite 
ineffectual. 

An officer came hot-footed down the gang- 
way. 

‘‘Now’s the time to repeat our demand to see 
the captain,” said Harry. “ Here goes — back me 
up, Pooley, in case my French gives out.” 

He stepped forward and interrupted the angry 
’ remonstrances which the officer was addressing to 
the sentry on account of the noise his prisoners 
had made. In the best French of which he was 


2 o 6 Friend or Fortune 

capable, Harry repeated our protest and our 
demand. 

The officer altered his demeanor after the first 
few words and listened attentively, promising, as 
our spokesman finished, that our representations 
should be laid before his chief forthwith. 

A few minutes afterwards, the petty officer with 
whom we had conversed the previous night came 
to us with orders to conduct the four of us into 
the presence of his captain. 

The French commander was in his cabin, in full 
dress, presumably in anticipation of the usual 
visit of courtesy from the commander of the En- 
glish man-o’-war. He received us with a strange 
mixture of bumptiousness and Gallic politeness. 
It soon becoming clear that his English was 
superior to our French, we told our story in our 
own language, replying freely to all his subsequent 
questions. 

“ The occurrences that have been reported to 
me,” he decided at length, must form the sub- 
ject of the strictest inquiry; in the meantime, 
though I shall keep the rest of your countrymen 
under arrest, you four are free, on condition that 
you give me your parole d' honneur not to escape.” 

“ How could we escape? ” asked Harry, bluntly. 
“ Had there been any means of getting away we 
should have gone before now.” 

“You forget. Though you could not get to 
your country, your country has come to you. 


The Last of Sunny Island 207 

On the deck of your man-o’war you would be in 
England.” 

Twue ; and a jolly good job, too,” said Pooley 
with pleasing candor. 

If we may not be allowed to go on board the 
Englishman we don’t want to leave this ship at 
all,” said I. “ We certainly don’t want to return 
to the Island.” 

‘‘ Then consider yourselves free — on board my 
vessel,” said the Frenchman. 

We thanked him, and were about to leave the 
cabin when an officer came below to report that 
the English captain was coming alongside. 

As we reached the deck, the gangway was al- 
ready manned. The blades of the British blue- 
jackets in the boat below were all uplifted in 
salute, and the most ceremonious etiquette was 
observed by the Frenchmen as their visitor stepped 
on board and was escorted aft. 

The visit lasted very much longer than such 
visits usually last. 

Before it ended we were summoned into the 
cabin, to find the two commanders deep in con- 
sultation. 

From the little we heard then and the much we 
heard subsequently, we learnt that in bringing 
before Captain Sir John Humphrey, of her Maj- 
esty’s ship Triton^ the circumstances in which he 
had arrested the English islanders, the French 
commander claimed explicitly the right to exercise 


2o8 


Friend or Fortune 


French jurisdiction. He asserted a French pro- 
tectorate of the island, and we were surprised to ^ 
hear Jules Ferdinand’s dwelling, from which, as f 
he pointed out, the tri-color was flying, elevated j 
to the dignity of “ Government House.” | 

Though not prepared to concede the right \ 
claimed by M. le Capitaine F^ron, Sir John was C] 
also unprepared, on the other hand, to claim the \| 
unconditional surrender of the prisoners. But in 
very plain and seaman-like terms he did claim the | 
right to take part in the investigation about to be 1 1 
instituted, and this point he insisted on carrying. 

To our personal appeal to him he paid the j 
closest attention, only checking us when we j 
travelled too far from the actual matter in hand. I 
After he had heard what he deemed sufficient, 
we were requested to leave the cabin, from which, | 
before Sir John himself emerged, almost an hour 
must have passed. ^ 

We were delighted to be told that we were to ji 
be regarded as witnesses in the forthcoming exami- j 
nation and were to proceed on board the Triton || 
with her captain. 

He said nothing to us on the way, but on board 
his own ship he invited us to tell him our story 
fully. He listened with growing interest and the | 
kindest sympathy. ' 

We gathered that the visit of the Triton might 
almost be described as an accidental one ; it proved 
an accident to which we probably owed our 


1 


The Last of Sunny Island 209 

liberty, if not our lives, and the means of our re- 
turn home. As to the reason for the unexpected 
coming back of La R^puhlique so soon after her 
last visit, we didn’t trouble even to inquire. 

The trial — if that be the proper term for the 
proceedings — commenced that afternoon, and 
lasted over the following day. 

The English ringleaders, vice David Jones, 
defunct, succeeded in putting a somewhat different 
aspect on the charges brought against them from 
that sought to be justified by Jules Ferdinand. 

In the end — pending, I believe, some sort of 
appeal which should settle the cardinal principles 
of jurisdiction involved — the whole of the pris- 
oners were released. 

We expected that some of them would ask to 
be received on board the British warship, but not 
one of them did. In fact, going ashore (with a 
jolly company of bluejackets) for the last time, on 
the night of their restoration to liberty, we found 
that the French and English, with the few Ameri- 
can islanders had all got uproariously drunk 
together in the most friendly manner. 

Reshurreckshunsh be blowed ! ” was a senti- 
ment ” proposed by a burly Yorkshireman who 
was still able to stand, and cheered to the echo 
by everybody who was still able to speak. 

Jules Ferdinand seized hold of poor Pooley, 
and wept all over him. He said he was his dearest 
friend, and he loved him. He hiccoughed that 
14 


210 


Friend or Fortune 


everybody was going to love everybody else in 
future, and proposed to burn a few Kanakas to 
celebrate the inauguration of the regime oi 
peace and fraternity. 

Both men-o’-war weighed anchor the next morn- 
ing, parting company a mile or two out at sea. 

The Triton was returning to the China station ; 
Captain Sir John Humphrey had willingly con- 
sented to carry us to Hong Kong. 

As we gave a last look backwards on Sunny 
Island from her white deck, Pooley de Vere Pullet, 
with a comprehensive wave of his hand, expressed 
the pious hope — 

“ Let us twust that evewybody there — except 
the compawatively wespectable natives — will cut 
evewybody else’s throat ! ” 


Jim Clucock’s Christmas Card 21 1 


CHAPTER XXVIII. 

JIM clucock’s CHRISTMAS CARD. 



ITH the closing months — the last weeks — 


V V of the “ strange year ” of which I have 
been trying to tell the strange story,” I must 
quicken the pace of my narrative. But I cannot 
resist the temptation to halt just long enough to 
repeat a yarn that an old bluejacket spun us one 
night as we were bowling along under the soft 
southern stars. 

“ There are three things mixed up in this here 
yarn,” he began ; “ the captain of this here 
ship, Jim Clucock, and Jim Clucock’s Christmas 
card. 

“ Now, Christmas cards is got up wonderful 
tasty and nice nowadays, with their werses and 
picters, but there ain’t never been a Christmas 
card like poor old Jim Clucock’s, nor yet ever one 
sent in such a extraordinary way. That’s what 
we always called that letter — we called it Jim’s 
Christmas card. 

We all loved him, but most all of us had a 


212 


Friend or Fortune 


hand in shooting him — which is what gives us wet 
eyes when we think about him. 

• “ The only thing we ever had against him was 
his being a tee-toe-/^/-er. But after wh^t he done 
— proving as being a tee-toe-/<^/-er don’t take the 
pluck out of a man — ’bout half of us — us who killed 
him — took the pledge in honor of his memory. 
We knowed we couldn’t do anything he’d ha 
liked better. 

‘‘ There was about a hundred of us altogether — 
mostly bluejackets, with a sprinkling of marines, 
all from H. M. gunboat Coquette^ on service on 
the west coast of Africa. 

“ We was in the usual sort of trouble with some 
of the native tribes, as had been up to their old 
tricks, and had got to have the old lesson taught 
’em in the old way. They’d been plunderin’ and 
murderin’ and cannibalisin’, and deserved far 
worse than anything we could give ’em. 

First we had to get a long way up a long and 
twisting river. The Coquette had been built of 
steel, on purpose for this sort of service, and drew 
wonderful light. For several days she steamed 
up that snaky river without touching bottom, 
easing up now and then while we set fire to a few 
deserted villages. Then the water-way got too 
shallow even for her, and we cast anchor. The 
rest of the job had got to be by way of a land 
expedition. We made out that our gentlemen 
were about fifty miles inland, and on the 20th of 


Jim Clucock’s Christmas Card 213 

December (never mind the year) about a hundred 
of us landed from the Coquette and commenced 
the march, under Commander the Honorable 
John Humphrey. 

I “ ‘ This’ll be quite a Christmas wisit,’ say Tee- 
toe-tal-ev Jim : ‘we shall be almost in time to give 
' ’em plums for their puddings,’ he says, looking 
I affectionate at a gatling gun. 

“ ‘ We ain’t going to do fifty miles in five days, 

I mate,’ says I, ‘ through the country as we’ve got 
to steer through. I’ve been on these here little 
up-country treats before. They ain’t Sunday- 
school excursions.’ 

“ My words was true. What with jungle and 
swamp, swamp and jungle, we hadn’t covered 
more than twenty miles at the end of the third 
day. 

“Jim Clucock was on sentry duty that night, 
and that night he got carried off by the enemy. 
We didn’t know that any of the niggers was about, 
but they was, and some of ’em must have crept 
through the swampy grass like snakes, had Jim 
muzzled and down before he clapped a peeper on 
one of ’em, and carried him off — all so silent that 
’twas only the visiting rounds discovered his 
absence. 

“ We had a few friendly niggers with us as 
guides, and these was sent out with a picket, but 
reported they could find no trail. 

“ But trail or no trail, we had plenty of proof 


214 


Friend or Fortune 


before morning that we was in the enemy’s coun- 
try, for besides carrying off Jim Clucock the 
blacks actually killed another sentry with a pois- 
oned arrow. 

“ Every precaution was taken as we resumed 
our march at daybreak towards the big “ village ” 
we was making for. Our scouts made out that a 
small force of natives was not far ahead, and of 
this the evidence got plainer and plainer as the 
day advanced. A body of the enemy was falling 
back before us in the direction of what the officers 
called the ‘ objective point ’ of our movements. 
When we overtook them we might learn some- 
thing of the fate of Jim Clucock. 

“ The country was now much more open, and 
on that twenty-fourth of the month we covered a 
good fifteen miles. 

“ It was a funny time, that Christmas Eve in 
the wild West African jungle. However, we 
did’t forget as it was Christmas Eve, and spoke 
of old folks at home and wives and sweethearts. 
A lot more poisoned arrows fell amongst us, and 
three black scamps were shot as they tried to 
make off on their stomachs. Everybody made 
pretty sure of a brush with the enemy in the 
morning. 

“ We had one. 

“ Naturally enough the beggars chose their own 
place. In a nasty sort of defile they let fly at both 
our flanks from the thick jungle on either side — 


Jim Clucock’s Christmas Card 215 

arrows and spears. Not one of their black hides 
could we see — we just fired at random. Sud- 
j denly our attention was took up by something in 
front. 

“ The exit of the jungle pass was held in what 
looked like force. And amongst the blacks there 
was a man as wasn’t black. Not only was he 
white, but he wasn’t a civilian white. He was a 
bluejacket — not only was he a bluejacket, but he 
was Jim Clucock. 

“ We in the leading ranks saw his face. 

“ It was all over in a moment. 

“ He held a bow and arrow in his hands, and 
the arrow was levelled straight on Captain Hum- 
phrey as he led us on. 

They fired one shower of arrows. Jim Clu- 
cock’s came first by itself, and struck Humphrey 
i on the breast. 

I ‘‘ ‘ Traitor ! ’ 

I believe that every shot of our rattling volley 
forward was aimed at Jim Clucock. 

“ He was riddled with bullets. But there was 
I more than peace on his face when we turned him 
j over — there was a smile there. 

! The natives was all rushing pell-mell away 

I now — the brush was over. 

I We didn’t know it for a minute or two — then 

i we knew it all. 

' As the arrow fell to the ground after striking 

. Commander Humphrey, he noticed something 


2i6 


Friend or Fortune 


tied round it near the tipped end. It was a piece 
of white paper. As he unrolled it, he noticed that 
the iron arrow-head had been removed, and a 
blunted imitation one of wood — harmless, soft 
wood — put in its place. It was strange, very- 
strange. 

“ But what was wrote in pencil on the paper 
was stranger still — far stranger still. It was wrote 
by Jim Clucock — wrote the night before, wrote on 
Christmas Eve — and addressed to Commander 
Honorable Humphrey. 

“ ‘ hack, sir. The beggars surprised me a7id 
carried me off before I could make a sound. They 
kept me alive to get information. They got it — all 
lies. But I pretended to turn traitor, and the in- 
formation I've got from them is true. Go back, 
sir. You are being led on on a false scent. Your 
guides even are false. All the tribes are hurrying 
to join each other IN YOUR REAR. We are only 
a small body acting as a decoy and to harass you. 
The devils in your rear, when they all join, will 
seize the ship first, and then wait to eat you up. 
So go back, sir, at once. 

“ ‘ I've offered to fight against you to-morrow. I 
shall fight with this piece of paper, as I hope will 
be took notice of. Of course I shall get shot, but if 
I made a step to join you, the niggers, who watch 
me close, would spear me ; and I prefer to die at 
the hands of my shipmates. 


Jim Clucock’s Christmas Card 217 

j * A Happy Christmas to you^ sir^ to all the 
I officers, and all my mates and comrades, 

“ ‘ James Clucock. 

“ ‘ Christmas Eve I 

I We only stopped for one thing — to lay him in 
the ground. I never saw before 'bout a hundred 
j men cry at the same time. 

“ Then back we marched. We did the job in 
three days. We met the first batch of niggers 
the same day, and accounted for ’em ; the next 
lot came in for their little bit on the second day ; 
on the third day we sort of washed up what we 
could find. A week after we was at sea again. 

‘‘Commander the Honorable John Humphrey 
as was is a bigger swell than ever now, for besides 
being a full captain he’s a barrow knight. But, 
barrow knight and captain and swell as he is, I 
guess he’s kept something he wouldn’t easy part 
with — something as I’ve seen him look at more 
than once with fishy eyes — poor humble old JiM 
Clucock’s Christmas card.” 


2i8 


Friend or Fortune 


CHAPTER XXIX. 

“WHO ARE YOU?” 

DRIVED at Hong Kong, we bade a grate- 



Jr\. ful farewell to H.M.S. Triton^ her gallant 
commander, her gallant officers, and many of her 
equally gallant crew. During the long run from 
Sunny Island — as we continued to call the scene 
of our most recent adventures — we had “ made 
chums ” at the rate of about a dozen a day. 

Our next care was as to ways and means. 
Although we were neither penniless nor pound- 
less, an immediate appeal to Mr. John Dexton 
was decided upon, for there was no kind-hearted 
Mr. Robison this time to get us passages to Eng- 
land on credit. 

So Harry dispatched his telegram to Mr. 
Dexton. He received a message in reply requir- 
ing evidence of identity. He presented himself 
to the Consular authorities, and went through 
some formalities, after which they wired to the 
cautious solicitor. Three days afterwards the 
amply sufficient sum that Harry had asked for 


Who are You 


219 

was at his disposal. Within a week we were all 
four at sea again, once more homeward bound.’* 

We arrived in London “safe and sound,” no 
incident worth recording having marked the 
voyage, which was as uneventful as our previous 
experiences had been eventful. 

We left the ship on the evening she docked, 
and proceeded to a hotel, where we put up for 
the night. The next morning Harry and I, leav- 
ing Pooley in charge of the padre, hied us to the 
offices of Mr. John Dexton in Lincoln’s Inn, and 
supplied him with indisputable “ evidence of 
identity ” in our own persons. He kept a whole 
string of impatient clients waiting while we talked 
and he did the listening. He made an appoint- 
ment for Harry to see him again in a week’s 
time, “ when,” he said, “ future plans must be 
settled for you.” 

“ And for my cousin Rafe, sir,” insisted Harry 
firmly. “ Where I go he goes ! ” 

“ Still chums, then, eh? ” said the lawyer, with 
a kindly smile. 

“ Firmer chums than ever, Mr. Dexton. Ever 
and always chums, ar’n’t we, Rafe? ” 

“ Ever and always chums, Harry ! ” said I as 
heartily. 

“ This day week, then,” repeated Mr. Dexton, 
rising, “ at ’’—with a glance at his watch— “ twelve 
o’clock. Now, what are you going to do with 
yourselves in the mean time?” 


220 


Friend or Fortune 


“ We're going down to Beechy Bay,” replied 
Harry quickly and hotly, to give old Consett a 
worse wigging than ever he gave us in the old 
days.” 

“In the old days ! ” They did seem old days, 
very old days, although fewer than three hundred 
and sixty-five rounds of the clock separated us 
from the last of them. If we reached Beechy 
Bay on the third day from our arrival in the 
Albert Docks we should reach it exactly a year 
from the bright, sunny morning at the end of July 
upon which I left it. 

What a year it had been ! — and its adventures 
were not over yet, though we thought they 
were. 

“ Of course, there has been no news of our 
uncle Bengough ?” asked Harry as we took our 
departure. 

Mr. Dexton shook his head. 

“ No,” he replied gravely. “ The dead send no 
news.” 

We had intended to start for Beechy Bay direct 
on the morrow, but this plan was varied at the 
urgent request of Pooley. 

“Telegwam from the Honorwable Tabitha! ” 
he exclaimed, as we re-entered the hotel, flutter- 
ing the message in the air. 

We knew already that he had sent a long letter 
— which did not ask for a remittance — ashore to 
the dear old lady by the pilot-cutter in the Downs, 


Who are You 


221 


giving her a detailed account of our rovings and 
our doings, adventures and misadventures. 

We are bringing home an adopted father,” he 
had explained to her, amongst many other things, 
** and we’re all going to hang together — as we 
nearly did on the island ! ” 

He really was a capital letter-writer. 

The telegram was from his aunt’s country house 
a few miles from Aldershot, and conveyed what I 
can only call a peremptory invitation for all four 
of us to repair there at once. 

** It weads like a Woyal invitation to go and 
perform at Windsor Castle,” commented Pooley. 
“‘You are commanded’ st5de. Now, what I 
}, pwopose is this : bweak the journey with me at 
Aldershot to-morrow. We’ll spend the night at 
I auntie’s, and all go on together to Beechy Bay 
I the day after. I’m anxious to see her at once, 

’ partly on account of the affectionate condition of 
* my heart, so to speak, and partly on account of 
the empty condition of my purse.” 

Harry made an instant dive into his pocket. 

“ No, no,” said Pooley hastily ; “ I don’t mean 
I that. But I shall be obliged to have a talk with 
the Honorwable Tabitha about my affairs. So, 
fwom the point of view of affection and the point 
of view of finance combined, I say let’s pay her 
I this visit to-mowwow. If we don’t, she may cut 
up wough.” 

He carried his point easily enough, for there 


222 


Friend or Fortune 


was no objection to his plan save what arose from 
my impatience to face Consett and the school. 
We spent the afternoon in making a number of 
purchases at a number of shops, the task of ** we- 
plenishing our wardwobes,” as Pooley put it, hav- 
ing been very imperfectly performed at Hong 
Kong. 

Arrived at Aldershot at noon next day, we 
found a carriage in waiting. We hadn’t driven 
far before we came in sight of a wide-stretching, 
plain, covered with troops of all arms. We had 
never seen such a dazzling sight in our lives. 
The brilliant sunshine poured down on glittering 
miles of steel. Moving masses of scarlet shone 
out against the deep blue of the gunners and the 
nodding white plumes of cavalry. Waving pen- 
nons, flashing swords, dazzling accoutrements, all 
the pride, pomp, place, and circumstance ” of 
mimic war were presented to our unaccustomed 
eyes on that rolling down — a sight to stir older 
blood than ours. I know that mine was tingling. 
I noticed a more eager look in even the poor old 
padre’s eyes than I had ever seen there before. 

“ It be a sham fight, sirs,” said our coachman ; 
they be just a-going to begin. I must droive 
on sharp, for this here hoss he fair jump out of 
his skin when they big goons go hoff. I must 
droive round instead of across now, and keep out 
of soight as well as out of sound as fur as I can.” 

But we didn’t want to be done out of the sight 


Who are You 


223 

like that. We jumped out of the carriage and 
I made a hasty arrangement with the coachman to 
I drive “ round ” without us. We would make our 
1 way “ across ” on foot, and join him in the road 
I on the other side of the plateau, on to which we 
rushed helter-skelter as soon as we had made him 
i understand. 

For a time we moved from point to point with 
I the majority of the other spectators; but pres- 
; ently, getting more and more excited by the oc- 
1 casional blasts of the bugles and the rolling of 
j the drums, we attached ourselves, so to speak, to 
the quickest moving regiments, and raced ahead 
of everybody, of course keeping well out of the 
way of the marching lines of infantry, the charg- 
ing troops and squadrons of cavalry, the headlong 
gallops of the horse artillery, and the slower 
movements of the grim field batteries. 

But suddenly we found ourselves in a position 
from which we had to run our hardest to escape. 

A thundered order, Right wheel into line ! ’* 
was instantly followed by such a change of form- 
ation on the part of some thousand men marching 
in column and echelon that we were placed directly 
I in front of them all. 

“ The line will advance. Quick march ! ” 

We took to our heels, but, all too soon 

Charge ! 

No foreign foe ever fled from advancing British 
bayonets at the charge faster than, we did. In 


224 


Friend or Fortune 


dread of what might be the result of the next 
command, we ran till we almost reached the 
farther edge of the plain, where we threw our- 
selves on the grass. 

Laughing at ourselves as heartily as our scanty 
breath would allow us, we were in no wise of- 
fended at the laughter that reached us from the 
throats of a body of dismounted cavalrymen near 
our resting-place. They had evidently been 
placed out of action, for they were lolling about 
at their pleasure, many of them smoking. The 
officers, gathered in a little group by themselves, 
were chatting and joking. We were so close to 
them that the scent of their cigars reached us. 

We jumped to our feet as a roar of big guns 
close at hand seemed to split our ears. A cov- 
ered battery away to our left, but nearer the 
centre of the plain, had opened fire, and was play- 
ing upon another advancing mass of infantry. 

“ Look at the padre ! ” 

The startled voices of Harry, Pooley, and my- 
self rang out together — “ Look at the padre ! ” 

Was it the padre ? 

The face we looked at — the face with beetling 
eyebrows, flashing eyes, unfamiliar lines round 
mouth and temples — the missing lines, the miss- 
ing look — was not the face we knew. 

Even his complexion had changed. 

We were speechless and motionless — incapable 
of either word or action. 


Who are You 


225 

He sprang to the group of cavalry officers, and 
laid one passionate hand on the shoulder of the 
chief in command, and pointed the quivering 
fingers of the other at the belching guns. 

To him the warfare was all real, not sham, for 
he cried — 

“ Charge those guns, sir ! ” 

The officer was speechless with indignation 
and amazement. 

With a movement as quick as the flashing of 
lightning, the padre tore the sabre from the scab- 
bard that hung from his belt, and struck him with 
the flat of it across the breast. 

By G ! sir, why don’t you silence those 

guns ? ” 

With a furious gesture, white with passion, the 
officer ejaculated — 

What does this outrage mean ? Who are 
you, sir? ” 

With one quick, comprehending glance at the 
glittering badge that told his questioner’s rank, 
the padre raised the sabre, still in his grasp, and 
flashed it through the graceful motion of a sol- 
dier’s salute to his superior before he answered — 

“ I am Major Gabriel Bengough ! ” 

15 


226 


Friend or Fortune 


CHAPTER XXX. 

THE DEAD ALIVE ! 

ILL you imagine the scene that followed, 



and excuse me for not attempting to 


describe it ? 

By picturing it for yourselves you will probably 
get quite as accurate an idea of what it was like 
as you would from any description that I could 
now write. 

Although my recollection of the further inci- 
dents immediately leading up to its recital is 
somewhat blurred, the story itself that Uncle 
Bengough had to tell is, for the greater portion 
in the very words in which he told it, as fresh in 
my mind as though I had only heard it yesterday. 

A part he told in the midst of a group of 
amazed and at first incredulous officers, a part in 
the carriage as we continued our interrupted 
drive, and a part in the course of a subsequent 
tremendous talk in the house of Pooley’s aunt, 
when we had all cooled down a little — a talk that 
lasted till long past midnight. 

It will suffice for our purposes if I commence 


The Dead Alive 


227 

my summary of his extraordinary experiences at 
the point of his departure from India for Eng- 
land on board the Eastern Star. 

Chiefly for the sake of his long-tried and long- 
suffering liver, he had been medically advised to 
make a long voyage of it, and had therefore taken 
his passage by a slow-sailing ship instead of a fast 
steamer, the Eastern Star having been specially 
preferred because of the circumstance that she 
was bound home by the old slow route round the 
Cape of Good Hope instead of the new quick one 
through the Canal. 

All went well with the Eastern Star till she 
was in the latitude of St. Helena, when the storm 
arose in which she foundered, with, it was sup- 
posed, the loss of every soul on board. 

‘‘A few minutes before she must have sunk a 
life-belt was given me, which I put on. The fate 
of the ship was now so certain that it occurred to 
me to write the message which I threw into the 
sea. I had scarcely sealed the bottle and hurled 
it overboard when something happened. I shall 
never know whether something fell on my head 
from above, whether I fell on the deck, or whether 
I was flung overboard as the ship gave one of her 
last lurches. But it is certain that either some- 
thing struck my head or my head struck some- 
thing. I can remember — now — the pain of the 
blow ; I can remember — now — struggling against 
a strange lethargy which was yet not absolute 


228 


Friend or Fortune 


unconsciousness, although I think I must have 
become unconscious soon afterwards. When I 
recovered consciousness the numbness of my 
mind remained. Memory had gone. 

“ Supported by the life-belt, I was floating still. 
I was conscious — it seems a strange way of put- 
ting it — of the sea all round me, but I couldn’t 
remember what it was called. I saw the now 
clear sky above me, but I couldn’t understand 
what it was. 

Who I was, what I was, where I was, where I 
had been — it was all lost, all lost. I was a child 
again. 

“ I was picked up by a small boat, and taken 
to Ascension Isle — towards which I had been 
drifting and from which the boat came. 

“ The few people there were very, very kind 
and compassionate. I lived in the house of an 
Italian named Ladoni — he it was who called me 
* padre ’ first, and soon I was known by no other 
name. I tried to tell Ladoni that I knew I had 
not always been as I was then. I think he must 
have learnt a good deal about me from the few 
papers in my possession, sodden though they 
must have been. Certainly he learnt more than 
I was able to tell him. 

“ Living also with Ladoni was another English- 
man — not only a fellow-countryman but a fellow- 
soldier. As I recall him to mind now, I am cer- 
tain he had been in the ranks. 


The Dead Alive 


229 


You must not forget that all sorts of things 
— all sorts of details — that were vague and misty 
to me at the time, in a way which I cannot ex- 
plain, are definite and clear to me now. I know 
all now. It will be a good time for the doctors 
when I make my case known to them, as I cer- 
tainly shall do. I can even remember that this 
man endeavored to make me understand that he 
had been landed on the isle in circumstances 
similar to my own — save, of course, for the fact of 
the almost unique injury to my head. 

“ Presently occurred something that very sel- 
dom happens at Ascension, even in these times — 
a ship called there. Williamson left in her for 
the Thames. 

“ I realized that he had gone. I remembered 
the words he said to me, over and over again, 
before he left : the words were in my poor 
paralyzed brain, but not their sense, their mean- 
ing. 

* I know who you are — ^your papers have told 
Ladoni. I am going to England. I shall find 
your friends, your two nephews. They will send 
for you.’ ” 

“ Pooley ! ” I cried, “ the dead man in the tun- 
nel ! ” 

At last we knew what would have been the 
news he tried in vain to tell us. 

“ Ladoni persevered in uttering almost the 
same words,” continued the Major — “ ‘ he has 


230 


Friend or Fortune 


gone : he will find your friends. They will send 
for you. Maybe they will come for you.’ 

“ What did it all mean ? Where would he find 
my friends ? Who were my friends ? 

“ These were the partially formed, struggling 
thoughts that frequently agitated me. 

“ One night when they pressed upon me more 
than ever — and all the more painfully because of 
my futile efforts to grasp their meaning — I wan- 
dered from Ladoni’s house and came upon his 
boat, lying close in to the rocky shore. 

“ I must find Williamson, who had himself gone 
to find my friends. I must go to him by the 
way in which he had gone to them — by way of 
what was straight before me, by way of what 
people called the sea. 

I got on the boat and cast her loose. In the 
morning only two things were visible — the sea 
and the sky. I think it must have been on the 
next day that a third thing was visible — the great 
ship that sent another boat and took me on board, 
where soon everybody called me ‘ padre ’ also. . . . 

“ It was the sight of the soldiers that did it — 
the old sight, the old sounds of action. Some- 
thing — don’t laugh — seemed to go snap inside 
my head. Like a flash of lightning, everything 
I had lost came back to me. Memory — reason 
— remounted her throne. Only I thought I was 
once more in action ; and, still irresponsible for 
what I might do, I did what I did,” 


The Dead Alive 


231 


The officer he had assaulted held out his hand. 

What you have done in action, Major Ben- 
gough, is never likely to be forgotten,” he said. 

What you did this morning is forgotten already ’* 
— and the generous fellow shook the hand of the 
old Anglo-Indian warrior a second time. 


Friend or Fortune 


232 


CHAPTER XXXI. 

DECEMBER SUNSHINE. 

E found the coachman roaming the plain 



in search of us. Hours late, we resumed 


our seats in the carriage. 

“ So you two lads — two of the three who have 
cared for me, tended me, saved me — are my own 
nephews ! 

“Yes, uncle.” 

“ Well, my lads, God bless you ! Hands all 
round once more.” 

The further remarks of Major Gabriel Bengough 
about Harry, Pooley, and myself, we all three — 
chums still — consider too eulogistic for publica- 
tion. 

Pooley’s aunt was waiting to receive us in the 
drawing-room. 

She rose as we entered — Pooley first, Harry 
and I close behind him, and Uncle Gabriel last, 
towering inches above the tallest of us. He 
bore himself now with all a soldier’s erectness of 
carriage. 

Just as Pooley was about to receive her em- 


December Sunshine 


233 


brace, she caught sight of the soldierly figure, the 
soldierly face, just inside the closing door. And 
in such a funny voice she cried, “ Gabriel ! ” at 
the instant that uncle cried ** Tabitha ! ’’ 

The next moment Pooley’s aunt fainted. She 
fainted, but she didn’t fall, because uncle held her 
in his arms so tightly. We saw him bend his 
head ; his grizzled moustache twitched as he 
kissed her forehead. 

** There’s more in this than meets the optic,” 
whispered Pooley. Let’s skedaddle out of the 
room ! ” 

Of course we did so, so it was not till shortly 
afterwards that we knew that years ago — long 
years ago, in the May-time of their lives — Pooley’s 
aunt and our uncle had loved each other. But 
the lives that were to have been united had been 
divided — a cloud had darkened all the sunshine 
— each had been made to misunderstand the 
other by a false friend of both. And one had 
gone abroad and tried to forget, while the other 
had remained at home, her lonely heart all the 
lonelier for knowing that it was no use to 
try. 

The summer of their liyes had gone ; even the 
autumn had passed, the winter time was close at 
hand ; nay, it had come, for had not already its first 
snows fallen on their heads? But meeting each 
other as they had met just now, both were carried 
back to the spring-time of their lives and the 


234 


Friend or Fortune 


spring-time of their love in the rush of emotion 
that made a temporary oblivion of all the time 
between. 

And it came about that in December was to 
return, in shortened measure, the sunshine that 
had been darkened in May. 

Pooley’s aunt fainted five more times in the 
course of the evening, the whole of which was 
taken up in telling her — with many skips — what 
I have now almost finished telling you. 

Previously Major Bengough — as masterful now 
as he had been docile before — had dispatched a 
peremptory telegram to Mr. Dexton, requiring 
him to meet us at Aldershot in the morning. 

There’s no need for you to delay your journey 
to Beechy Bay, boys, on account of a civilian. 
Dexton shall come with us, and be told what he 
is to do on the way.’* 


Bearding the Lion in his Den 235 


CHAPTER XXXII. 

BEARDING THE LION IN HIS DEN. 

*‘73 LESS US and save us, Joe! here’s our in- 
JL) westment come back ! 

The voice was the voice of old Dan Runciman 
speaking to his son Joe. 

They had run full tilt against us as we walked 
from the station on the well-remembered road to 
the school. 

“ And — Lord help us ! — here’s Master Harry, 
what got downdeded! Both of ’em come back 
together 1 ” 

One of the huge outstretched red hands be- 
longed to Dan, the other to Joe. Neither hand 
had to wait long for the clutch of mating fingers, 
and Pooley was only waiting his turn. 

“ Come on, Dan ! come on, Joe ! ” 

“ God bless us ! ” was all they could say. 

I talked to Dan and Harry talked to Joe as we 
all proceeded towards Beechy Bay Academy for 
Young Gentlemen ; but I don’t think either of 
them realized for long enough anything beyond 
the fact that we had both returned. 


Friend or Fortune 


236 

Dan had no coat on over his fisherman’s jersey, 
so there was nothing for me to brush off it. 

“ Give us your hand again ! ” I exclaimed, as 
we halted for a moment outside the school-house 
gates. 

“ Aye, aye, Master Rafe : willing and free and 
hearty. Hulloa, sir ! ” — as he held out a very 
thin piece of paper that rustled between his fin- 
gers — “ what’s this ? ” 

“ The earwig you brushed off my coat, Dan.’* 

“Now then,” cried Uncle Gabriel, “what’s the 
word of command ? Are we all to beard this 
small lion in his den together ? ” 

“ Yes, uncle.” 

“ Every one of us,” I chimed in. “ No, no, 
Dan, no hanging back! No skulking, Joe ! We 
ask you in, and wedl see you safe out.” 

“That’s spoke fair,” laughed Joe. 

“ Fair it is,” said Dan, with a chuckle. 

“ It stwikes me, Wunciman ” — I needn’t say 
who was speaking — “that if you and Joe don’t 
come in, you’ll miss a tweat such as you’ll never 
have a chance of seeing again.” 

“ Lead the way, then, gennelmen, and we’ll 
follow close in your wake.” 

In single file we strode up the narrow lane that 
led to the garden entrance of the “ Big Room ” — 
I first, Harry behind me, then Pooley, next the 
impatient Major, followed by Mr. John Dexton, 
Dan and Joe bringing up the rear. 


Bearding the Lion in his Den 237 

It was a grand scene, that 

“ . . . Last scene of all, 

That ends this strange, eventful history.” 

It was breaking-up day — every boy was in his 
place. Job Consett and the under-masters were 
in theirs on the platform. We burst in upon 
them all. 

We were just in time ; the usual address of 
dismissal for the holidays was on the point of 
being delivered. 

I flatter myself that we varied the final order 
of the intended proceedings considerably. 

Though masters and boys alike sprang from 
their seats, no one tried to stop us. 

We reached the edge of the platform, and I 
jumped on to it with a single bound. 

I turned first to my old schoolfellows. 

You know what some of you — you, Locks, 
and others — suspected me of doing with Harry 
Saxon. There he stands ! ” 

I thrust aside a master who tried to push me 
back, and walked a few steps closer to The 
Patient One. 

Dr. Consett, you know what you accused me 
of doing with Harry Saxon. There he stands ! 

The boys had found their voices. I never ex- 
pect to hear such cheers again. 

Curly Locks had joined me on the platform, 
and was wringing my hand off. 


Friend or Fortune 


238 

Of all that crowded roomful only one remained 
calm — Mr. John Dexton. In the midst of the 
babel he ascended to Consett’s side, and spoke 
quickly but quietly to him. 

Whatever the solicitor said, the pedagogue was 
incredulous. With an unmistakable look towards 
Uncle Bengough he let fall distinctly the word 

Impostor ! ” adding, Such a case has never 
been heard of.” 

Impostor, sir ! ” roared the Major. “ Do you 
apply that term to me? By Jupiter! sir, let me 
get at you, and I’ll see if I can provide the doc- 
tors with a case of similar results from a similar 
cause by cracking every bump on your head 
against the wall till I smash in the right one ! ” 

Gradually — but very gradually — the hubbub 
subsided. 

Have you anything more to say, Rafe ? ” 

** No, sir.” 

“You, Harry?” 

“ No, uncle.” 

“ Has anybody anything more to say ? Be- 
cause, if not, we’ll clear out. Has anybody any- 
thing more to say ? ” 

“ Yes, I have.” 

“ Oh, j/ou have, have you ? Out with it, then, 
sharp.” 

Job Consett shrank back alarmedly as the Major 
faced him, but plucked up courage to get rid of 
what was on his mind. 


Bearding the Lion in his Den 239 

You owe me a bill, sir. I have a bill against 
you on account of these two lads. It amounts 
to ” 

Not another word, sir — not one word. I know 
how you treated these two nephews of mine. I 
know all, or I shouldn’t be here with them to-day. 
Dexton, pay this man for me, will you ? Now — 
on the spot. Have you got your cheque-book 
with you ? ” 

“ Yes, Major.” 

Then pen and ink here, somebody.” 

The cheque was made out, signed, and delivered 
“ on the spot.” 

The address for that particular dismissal was 
never delivered. The boys dismissed themselves 
without it, for they swarmed out after us. 

Harry and I were so plied with questions that 
our tongues began to grow weary with answer- 
ing. 

Caps were thrown high in the air, and cheers 
rose higher than the caps, as we passed out of the 
gates, “Bravos” and “Hurrahs” following us 
all down the road. 


240 


Friend or Fortune 


CHAPTER XXXIII. 

CHUMS STILL. 

T he host of the Blue Anchor was staggered 
when he received, from our gallant uncle 
himself, that order to prepare dinner for five. 
Such a dinner had never been ordered in Beechy 
Bay before. 

He was staggered, but he bore up. He did his 
best, and it was a very good best. He acquitted 
himself like a man and a landlord. 

‘‘ When I have anything to say,” remarked 
Uncle Gabriel, as he lit a big cigar at the con- 
clusion of the repast, “ I like to say it. As Tve 
got a good deal to say to-night. I’ll start saying 
it at once. 

First, about Westwood, and that will of mine. 
By-the-by, Mr. Dexton, don’t forget to destroy it 
the instant you get back.” 

“ Probate has been granted,” said the solicitor. 
“ Confound the probate, sir ! Didn’t I tell you 
this morning ” 

** I understand your wishes, Major Bengough,” 


Chums Still 


241 

interrupted Mr. Dexton calmly, “ and everything 
shall be done in accordance with them.” 

“ Thanks — and excuse my impatience. I al- 
ways was impatient, and a soldier’s life in India 
always seems to have a peppery effect on one’s 
disposition. It strikes me that I’ve got some- 
thing else back besides my memory — and that’s 
my liver, confound it ! ” 

Nobody contradicting the probability of this 
suggestion, he continued the remarks from which 
he had broken off. 

** About Westwood. The place belonged to 
the Bengoughs for hundreds of years, passing 
intact from father to son for generation after 
generation — intact, mark me, after the good old 
fashion. We only lost it because at last that 
good old fashion was broken and the estate was 
split up. More splittings up followed the first, 
until every Bengough had a little and no Ben- 
gough had much. All the time the family was 
losing its standing in the county, and its political 
power and importance in consequence. In the 
end, every acre passed into the hands of strangers. 
All my life, saying nothing about it, I had one 
absorbing ambition — to buy every acre of it back. 
I succeeded. The day came at last when the 
whole of the old place belonged to a Bengough 
again — belonged to me. 

“ I made a will — a hasty one — on the very day 
I left Bombay. 

16 


242 


Friend or Fortune 


“ There was nobody to leave Westwood to but 
one of my two nephews — mark me, Dexton, to 
one of them ; the whole to one, for I was deter- 
mined that it should never be split again. 

“ I knew nothing of either of ’em — had never 
seen either of ’em — didn’t care a fig for either of 
’em. The only principle of selection I could be 
guided by was the good old hereditary idea of 
‘ land to the eldest.’ I suppose I’m too much of 
a Tory for these times and this country ; how- 
ever that may be, you know what my will was. 

“ But now it won’t do. Confound it ! it won’t 
do at all. I can’t have my friend Rafe here left 
out in the cold when my days are over. He put 
Friendship before Fortune, Honor and fair fame 
before Gold ; when I deliver up my sword to the 
grim conqueror he must have his whack of the 
loot I shall leave behind me.” 

“ Bravo, uncle ! ” cried Harry. 

“ That’s right, lad — that’s the spirit. I won’t 
split up the estate, but I’ll devise some way by 
which both of you shall benefit by it when I’ve 
done with it. In the mean time choose your own 
careers, and I’ll find you the means to pursue 
them. 

“ As for this stuttering jackanapes of a friend 
of yours here. . . .” 

Pooley bowed politely, for there was no mis- 
taking the kindliness of the smile on the Major’s 
face. 


Chums Still 


243 

“As for him, he never need be short of a 
* wemittance ’ when he wants one, for — out of his 
clothes — he’s one of the best. And I may as well 
say now as at any other time that his aunt and I 
are going to be married. We thought to live our 
lives together a long time ago. As it is, at least 
we’ve made up our minds not to die apart. 

“ Now get out of the room, you three young- 
sters. Confound it ! don’t start thanking me ; I 
hate it. Get out of the room. I want to talk 
business with Mr. Dexton.” 

Pooley de Vere Pullet never wanted any more 
“ wemittances ” from anybody, for before he had 
time to get hard up again — after that visit to his 
aunt — his distant kinsman the baronet died, and 
most unexpectedly left him quite sufficient to 
live — and dress — on. 

Major Gabriel Bengough is Squire of West- 
wood yet — long life to him. 

Pooley’s aunt — the Squire’s wife — is well — long 
life to her. 

Harry Saxon, our old uncle, Pooley, and I are 
all chums still. And Pooley’s aunt “ is another.” 


THE END. 







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